The Powerful Play Goes On
by Frankincense Pontipee
Summary: Somewhere between the cake, the crime drama, the books, the post-its, the mortal enemies and the hot boys, a whispered legacy of words and ideas will change two lives forever. A modern Sense and Sensibility/Northanger Abbey crossover.
1. Part I, Chapter 1

_Part I: Ellis_

**Chapter One**

Mari cried openly at the funeral. If anyone else had done it, they would have been red and puffy. She, typically, looked elegant. Devastated, broken, but beautiful. Maggie, conversely, remained dry eyed. She clung to my side like a limpet, knowing full well that Mari is useless when she's upset, and the Mum has been distant, understandably so. Also, Maggie hates crying. I suspect that she guessed I'd be the least embarrassing one to stand with. A silent tear here. A subtle nose wipe there. A whole host of repressed, bubbling emotion, jammed down within. Perfect. Gentlemanly, as Maggie says.

Afterwards, we hid in the library. Fifi suggested (rather, insisted) that the whole house be opened up, "_in memory of dear Alistair." _"Bull," said Mari, five minutes after she arrived, having cycled through a wheel of emotion, right from the front steps (devastation), to the stairs (exhaustion), the hall (remorse), a brief interlude to bump into Fifi and John, then my bedroom (righteous indignation). "Dad wouldn't have had the house open for this," she had said. "He'd have been mortified."

A time of emotional turmoil is certainly not the time to mock. My head had automatically snapped up. My brain, however, managed to work faster than my tongue. Mari saw the movement. Then she squinted a little, recalling her words.

"Oh," she had said, and smiled, resigned. "Well, not mortified. It's a bit late for that."

We Dashwood girls know how to make a joke. Some would say that it's bad taste, a week after your father drowns, to be punning with the word play. We know differently, though. We know that Dad would have joined in. I said as much. Mari smiled.

Her smile had disappeared, however, by the day of the funeral. It was a bright, and sunny day, totally at odds with my Bronte-esque imagination of your typical funeral (freezing fog being the defining feature) but Mari was not. She had muscled through the last week of planning, writing eulogies, deciding on wording for headstones and newspaper announcements. She had tamped down her annoyance at Fifi, every time that she second guessed us. We had wanted "_live long and prosper". _Even John had smiled. She said no, almost ruling over us all. Mum had raised a long-suffering eyebrow, then nodded.

"He would have loved it," Mari had said, looking mutinously at Fi.

"Maybe he would," said Mum, "but _he_ doesn't have to look at it."

Fifi had smiled, smugly.

"I think '_He lived deliberately and lived deep'," _said Mum.

We had sat in silence for a few minutes, contemplating Dad's life, and wondering, secretly, if it wasn't in poor taste for a man, drowned at sea, to have 'he lived deep' engraved on his headstone. The guy did like puns in poor taste. Maybe it was perfect.

"Carpe Diem, and all that," I said.

Mum had smiled. "Exactly," she said.

"You don't want _that_ on the headstone, do you?"

Briefly, we all pictured the stone, elegantly carved:

_Alistair Alexander Dashwood_

_25__April, 1949 – 3 June, 2010_

_Husband, Father, Friend_

_He lived deliberately, and lived deep_

_Carpe Diem and all that_

I suspect that all of us, save Fi, thought it would be a fitting tribute to a man with such a silly sense of humour. We all, however, smiled, resignedly, and said no. Mari had said nothing, only drummed her fingers on the kitchen table. It is normally easy work to break that camel's back, but she stayed strong, if not terribly subtle. Half an hour after we buried Dad, however, she burst into the library where I had gone to hide, and said, not looking quite so elegant, and, in fact, a little more crazy, "she invited her whole family!"

"I know."

"Her _whole_ family, Ellis. To our Father's funeral. All of them. Here."

"I know."

She sat down, heavily, in one of the armchairs next to the fire. Had one of the room stewards been here, they would have shrieked. All that Edwardian finery, flumped under the weight of an angry twenty-one year old. "Her parents," she said, ticking off two fingers. "Her brothers." Another two fingers. "Her sister," she said, with a shudder.

"I know," I said again.

"No, you don't. You weaselled out of almost all the hell which surrounded John's wedding, when I was expected to entertain Robbie and Izzy," she said, her voice dripping with disdain. "Seriously," she said. "They were awful."

"You told me."

She had. Several times. Each time that she wanted me to do something. Something, that is, that I didn't want to. She'd wheel out the old 'you-weren't-there-and-I-had-to-cope-with-all-the-hellishness' and I'd feel slightly bad (not all that much, but a little) and would comply. Generally.

"Well," she said. "You should know then how bad it is. They're _all_ here. Even the one who couldn't come to the wedding because he was pulling off some business merger. Who does that anyway? Miss their own sister's wedding for _work_?"

I had to agree. At times I want to punt Mari and Mags into the lake, but I'd move hell and high water if they wanted me with them. For something important, I mean. There are times when I wouldn't get out of bed for them. But anyway. "Yeah," I said. "They're certainly not much like us."

"Yeah," repeated Mari, scornfully.

"It's not necessarily a bad thing."

She raised an eyebrow. Dad used to say that too. He thought we were delightfully dysfunctional. A family without much but each other, stuck in the body of a family with everything. That was his only explanation for why we still went on caravan holidays to Wales, and why he would drink beer over champagne, any day.

"Apparently, he's staying."

She got me on the wrong foot. "Sorry?" I asked. "What are you talking about?"

She sighed, and rolled her eyes. "Edward," she said. "The business merger king. Fifi has invited him to stay for a week, I think. Or more…"

"Why?"

Before Mari could answer, Maggie burst into the room. She had tried to sneak off upstairs as soon as we got in, to change out of her dress. Mum asked her, tiredly and quietly, if she could please keep it on, just for a few hours. Maggie grimaced, and said she'd promise nothing, but had at least, for now, managed it.

"Where are the books on wills?"

I shrugged. "We don't have any."

"We must!"

"Why?"

She frowned, and spun on her heel, striding to a bookcase. "Because," she said, running a finger along the spines of the books, "there has to be some loop-hole in them for getting the house."

"Maggie," I groaned. This had been going on all week, ever since the lawyers called. The estate had come to the family through John's mother. While Dad was alive, it went to him, but since he died, it carried on down the family line, to John, and not us. We vaguely knew that it was going to happen. We just didn't think it would happen for years.

"There has to be something!"

"There isn't."

She narrowed her eyes at me. "Why aren't you fighting for it?"

I shrugged. "There's no point. The estate divided is worth nothing. It makes sense for it to be inherited as a whole anyway, regardless of the fact that it was John's mother's inheritance. It should go to him."

"Anyway," said Mari, "we're always known that the business was ours. As for the house … well, Maggie, we can stay here for now, and when we finally find somewhere, it'll be better than anything you imagine. Honestly." Mari, for once, was successful. Normally she is too emotional and Mags too stubborn.

"Fine," said Maggie, and she slumped into the chair facing Mari. "It had better have a tree-house. And a lake."

I took a deep breath, hoping that all that air would squash down the terrible truth that was hiding in my chest. "Maybe," I said, and she gave me a shrewd look.

"Maybe? Maybe doesn't get Everest climbed."

"Mags…"

"Maybe doesn't discover America."

"No, but…"

"Maybe doesn't reach the pole, Ellis. Maybe dies in a tent."

Mari and I exchanged glances. Sometimes, Maggie goes completely over my head.

"OK," I said, "but I'm not promising you anything. We'll find somewhere to live, whether it's here, or a way away, close enough for me to get here to work."

"And what if you lose your job?" she asked, primly.

I sighed. "I'm the Estate Manager, Mags," I said. "I'm pretty invaluable."

* * *

Looking back, I wish I had never said it. It was like the blade which swiped out the first stitch. The rest just fell out, one by one. I rather suspect that the next one was Edward.

I met him over a plate over hors d'oeuvre. "Your Mum asked if you wanted anything to eat," he said, at my elbow. I was making painful small-talk with a neighbour who we had never liked, and who certainly never liked Dad. At this, I politely excused myself, and turned to him. He was, dare I say it, unremarkable. Lightish hair. Darkish eyes. A nice smile.

"I'm sorry?" I asked, eyeing the plate of cold food which he held out to me.

He smiled. "Your Mother. She asked if I could make sure you ate something."

I looked down at the plate. He looked too. "It's not really my kind of food."

He smiled again. "Mine either. I'm guessing Fi chose it."

I eyed him. "You must be her brother."

He shifted the plate to the other hand, and shook mine. "Edward," he said. "Pleased to meet you."

"Ellis, well…Elinor, really, but…"

"You don't like it?"

I shrugged. "I rather suspect that it's not really the done thing to drop the name that your father chose for you, especially at his funeral, but no. Not really. I changed it when I was twelve."

"Any particular reasoning in your choice?" His smile was interested. His eyes were alive.

I squirmed a little. This particular question always prompts the revelation of my inner teenager. "Uh," I began, "Emily Bronte."

His smile quirked. "Yorkshire solidarity?"

"Something like that. It was the year Dad gave me _Wuthering Heights_ to read. I thought it was the most romantic, extraordinary thing in all the world."

He put down the plate, and crossed his arms, smiling still. "So you're a romantic?"

I shrugged again. "Deep down. When I was younger. I think I developed a bit of a sensible shell as I got older."

"You went native," he murmured. I wouldn't have picked up on it, had it not been Maggie's ultimate put-down. And it was true.

"Yes," I said. "I did rather." I smiled, ruefully. "The girl who made her sister cry because she told her ghost stories disappeared over the years."

"You made her cry?"

I found myself starting to smile. "Yes? My parents never knew. Mari told them she had nightmares, so that they wouldn't stop me from doing it the next night."

"So she's just as bad?"

I smiled a little more. It started to feel a bit more normal again. "Much worse. She never went native. She's just as wild and romantic as we were when we were little." I paused. "How about you, then?" I asked.

"Oh, deeply sensible, I'm afraid." He smiled again.

Suddenly, I remembered who he was. "Right," I said. "You work in business management, or something…"

He rubbed the back of his neck, looking a bit embarrassed. "Well, not exactly."

"How 'not exactly'?"

"I quit?"

"Recently?"

"No. Years ago."

I frowned. "But Fi told me…"

"Yes," he interrupted. "She hasn't quite resigned herself to my stopping working in an office and wearing brogues. I'm a massive disappointment to her."

I absentmindedly picked at some mushroom filled pastry on the plate by my hand. I regretted it almost immediately. "So, what do you do?"

He seemed to squirm a little. He was clearly used to unfavourable responses. "A youth worker?" he said.

"Working with kids?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Down in Bristol. My friend Harry is training to be a vicar, working in a whole big bunch of churches. He got me to come and help out."

Without really noticing, we moved out onto the terrace. "So, he got you into it?"

We sat down on the stone steps. "Yeah," he said. "I met him in the Christian Union at university, and then after graduating, while he was starting training, he asked me to come and help out at some event. After that I helped out more and more, and trained in my spare time. I was miserable at work, and it was this great escape, and after a while, it seemed stupid to do a job I hated, and exhaust myself with work in my free time which I loved, when I could be paid for it."

"So you quit?"

He smiled again. "Yeah. My parents were horrified."

"And your sister."

"Yes," he said, with another smile. "I think she'd have preferred it if I had died."

"So you're the black-sheep of the family."

He rubbed the back of his neck again. "I guess," he said. "I'm very careful to not upset them over anything else now."

I leaned back on the steps. The sun had made them so warm. I felt like a cat, basking in the sunshine. "Like what?" I asked.

"Oh, you know, radical haircuts, becoming a vegan, dating the wrong women…"

"Or men?"

He smirked. "That would just about kill them."

The murmur from inside broke through my conscious. "I should go back inside," I said, and stood up, slowly. "Mari says that you're staying longer?"

He winced. "I'm sorry about that. Fi demanded that I did. I hope it's all right."

I managed another smile. "It's fine," I said. "It was nice talking to you." Then I walked back inside.

* * *

The next day, at breakfast, things reached an odd impasse.

"The funeral's over," hissed Maggie to me. "Why are they still here, and what's her brother doing here?"

Maggie has never been subtle. The whole table must have heard her. Edward smiled into his cornflakes. John caught my eye and squirmed. Only Fifi dared to look back at Maggie.

"This is our home now," she said.

"Too," broke in John. "Our home," he amended, "also."

"It has always been your home, John," said Mum, quietly.

He shot her a look of grateful pity. "I know. It has."

Mum smiled carefully, and turned back to studiously reading the paper, rather than talk to anyone.

The table settled into a state of awkward silence. Mari, while not as antagonistic as Maggie, was not talking. Fifi continued to eat with an air of superiority. John looked awkward. Edward looked like he was trying to blend into his chair, although in reality, the ghost of a smile gave him away. I looked around the table and realised that the person who used to be good in these situations was Dad. He'd diffuse it with a rousing discussion on _Star Trek_ and immigration, his favourite jam, and the state of the government's finances. He would dodge and weave between topics until everyone had said something. Now, however, the table remained silent. I caught John's eye. He was clearly thinking the same thing.

"So," I said. John smiled. "Anyone been watching _Veronica Mars?"

* * *

_

Edward found me, a while later, in the estate office. By that time, unfortunately for him, I had been cornered by Fifi. For several reasons, I was not in the best of moods.

"So," he said, leaning in the door, "you never actually told me why you're called Ellis."

"And you never told me what you're actually doing here," I shot back.

He winced. "Oh."

"You're here to assess the business potential of the estate?"

He moved into the office. "It's not how it sounds."

"Really?" I said, a little too fast. "So you're not here to assess the business…"

"Yes," he said, and slumped into the swivel chair opposite mine. He sighed. "I can't say no to her. More than anything else, I'm terrified that they'll finally snap and have me shipped off and deprogrammed."

I rubbed a hand across my stiff neck. "Like that guy in _Veronica Mars?"_

"From what you were saying at breakfast…yes." He smiled. "It's stupid, and they know that they can get away with pretty much murder, but I don't want to upset them."

I rolled my shoulders. The tension had risen and solidified in them. "So you're here to rip apart everything that Dad and I put into this place?"

"No," he said. "Not at all. I think Fi just wants a basic assessment of how it's going. The basic incomings and outgoings. Maybe a few ideas of how to increase incomings…decrease outgoings…you know."

I sighed, and leaned back in my chair. "OK," I said, finally. "Just don't give her any stupid ideas."

He grinned. "Roller-coasters and genetically recreated dinosaurs though, right?"

I rubbed a hand over my face. "Fine," I said, between my fingers.

"Good."

We sat in silence for a few minutes. Then, finally, "it was her pen-name."

"Sorry?" he asked.

I sighed, and rolled my shoulders again. "Emily Bronte. Ellis was her pen-name."

"Oh." He paused. "Why?"

"Fascist pig publishers."

"Oh," he said again. "Is Mari some author's pen-name?"

I looked at him for a second. "No," I said. "It's short for Marianne."

"Oh," he said once more. "That makes…" He began to smile at himself. "Sense," he said, finishing off laughing. "I must look like such an idiot."

I smiled back. "Just a bit."

He sighed, and leaned back in his chair, grinning. "Fine. I don't suppose, now that I've prostrated myself on the altar of dignity, that you'd let me look at the books, would you?"

Indignation rose in my chest. I smacked it down with sarcasm. "Well I've got _Jane Eyre_ upstairs. There's a very nice first edition of _The Tenant of Wildfell Hall_ in the library…"

"The _accounts_, Ellis."

I smiled a bit. Then I sighed, resigned, and leaned back, heavily, revelling in my fancy office chair. The old one had a tendency to scoot when I slumped. "Fine," I said, having probably screwed my face up into an old-man-apple kind of look in the last few seconds. "Fine," I said again, and, calling up the pages on my laptop and hit the _Print _button. He watched in silence as they whirred and chugged their way out. Then I handed them to him. "OK?"

He took them, and smiled. "Thank you," he said, and stood up. "I want to be friends, you know," he said. "I know, my sister and your job, and your Dad…it's all complicated, but I don't want to make this any harder than it has to be."

I sighed again. It's hard, being an adult. Besides the drinking, that is. "Fine," I said. "I will put aside my righteous indignation, and rise above it."

He quirked a smile. "Aside _and_ above?"

"All right, get out."

He grinned. "See you later," he said as he walked out of sight.

"Not if I see you first!" It turned out, that I'm not an adult after all. Who knew?

* * *

"I can trust you, can't I?"

"Of course."

I looked at him, hard, in the twilight. "Seriously, Ed. This can't go further."

"After this last week, I'd have thought you'd trust me. I did, after all, save your life."

I frowned a little. "When?"

"I stopped you from pitching over the side of the hill, and rolling, catastrophically, into the lake. And then drowning."

I frowned again. "I really don't remember that. I never…" I stopped. "You're not talking about when you said 'hey, Ellis, be careful of that rabbit hole', are you?"

He grinned. "No need to thank me."

"Ed, I'm serious."

He crossed his heart. "I will take it to my grave. Unless it's really funny…"

I groaned. "You're annoying."

He grinned.

"Fine, I just needed to tell someone, but you know, I'll just go and talk to the storks."

"No," he said, grinning still, but he caught my arm. "I _am_ serious," he said. "You can tell me anything." He composed his face. He looked reasonably sensible. "Tell me."

I sighed. I flicked my watch catch open and closed. I debated whether this was going to bring us down. I gave it up. The need to tell someone to whom it made no difference was becoming overwhelming. I hate keeping secrets. More than anything else. "OK," I said, "but you really do need to tell no one."

"OK," he said.

I sighed again, then, "we're broke."

He frowned. "Sorry?"

"Bankrupt, if you will."

"Ellis!"

I sighed, and leaned back against the steps, still warm, even in the gloom, from all the sun of the day. "Dad's will left the estate and all its finances to John, and the business and all its finances to Mum."

"Right," he said. "But he was one of the most successful business men of his time."

"Yeah," I said, "except when he died with those other twenty something people, it was on one of his boats, and several of them have sued, and we are already looking at multi-million settlements."

"What?"

I closed my eyes. "Yeah," I said again. "The other members of the board decided that it was in the company name's best interests if they just accepted culpability and paid up, rather than dragging those poor people through law suit after law suit. It is now pretty much bankrupt and is, as we speak, being sold to some American company."

"This is terrible," he breathed. "But what about the money from selling it?"

"Its reputation was where most of the money was, and that's gone. Other than that, it'll go anyway. Somewhere between redundancies and court bills. It can't go to us though. We decided that it was only fair."

He frowned. "We?"

"It should have been Mum, as she now owns it, but she wasn't really up to it. She signed it all over to me. I've checked everything with her, but really, she couldn't care less right now."

"And the business will close?"

"No," I said, sitting up again, easing out the kinks from where the warm stone edges had pushed into my back. "They're contractually obliged to stay in Barton. It was part of the selling agreement. We've already let down the town. We couldn't see half of them die, then fire the others."

He scooted along the step. "You haven't let them down. It was a freak accident, with a terrible combination of conditions. No one could have known what would happen."

I shrugged as his arm came to rest around my shoulder. "Either way, you can't pass the buck forever. The people wanted to blame someone, and we certainly felt responsible."

"Well," he said, pulling me a bit closer, under his arm, "I think you're extraordinary for dealing with this like that."

I smiled at him. Then we sat for a bit longer in the gloaming, listening to the cries of the birds down below us, as they settled down for the night.

* * *

I think it all might have worked out, somehow, had one thought not entered Fifi's mind. Or even if John hadn't handed the business side of the estate over to her. It was galling enough having to, ultimately, report to her. It was made ten times worse when she had her little idea.

"I thought a spa," she said, fingers steepled, eyes gazing intently between me and Edward, where we sat opposite the monstrous desk in the library. Dad's desk.

I swallowed down my immediate retort of "hell, no."

"I looked into that for you," said Ed. I shot him a look. He squirmed a little, then carried on quickly, "and said it was a bad idea."

"No," she said, painfully patiently, "you said that it would take a lot to make it work."

I frowned at Ed. He turned to Fi. "I said that it would take a massive amount of capital to make it worthwhile as your _only_ venture. I said it would maybe work as a side venture, but it couldn't in that capacity be the celebrity-high-status thing that you're imagining."

"Because of all the tourists," she said, disdainfully.

"Yeah," I blurted out. "They are, after all, the reason that we can still live in the house and not sell it for flats or…"

She pursed her lips. "So you say," she began, "that my little idea would not work in the way I want unless we had some massive injection of cash."

"Exactly," said Ed, looking, for the moment, reasonably triumphant.

She pursed her lips again. "Fine."

I let out the breath I wasn't even aware that I was holding, and stood up. "Well, if that's everything."

She stood up, and walked out.

I turned to Ed who, as I turned, pounced on me, and hugged me so hard, my feet came off the ground. "Well done," he said, and he grinned as he put me down. "She would have fought harder if you had lost it."

I sighed, and smiled up at him. "Thank you. I probably would have hit her had you not been here. Seriously. Closing the house? Starting a spa?"

He shrugged. "She's mad. Always has been. Izzy too. Rob's not much better. I, however, shucked the gene."

"A freak of nature, if you will."

He grinned yet again, and slung an arm around my shoulders as we walked out of the library. "So about the dinosaurs…" he began, and pushed open the door onto the terrace. It was only as I closed it from the other side that, through the glass, I saw Fifi, looking after us.

* * *

My momentary relief and, dare I say it, triumph, lasted a week. Then Fi asked for another meeting with me and Ed.

"It's sheer desperation," he said. "She loved that spa idea, and she'll do anything to keep it. She'll probably start floating ideas of selling out the whole bird garden and renting the lake out to the local aquarium."

I snorted, and settled down. Of course he was right. Of course it was going to be OK. We walked up to the house from where we'd been doing some work on the books down in the office. The entrance hall was cool and echoing. The corridors were quiet. The library, however, was thick with smug malevolence.

"Fi," I said, sitting down opposite her. The smirk barely moved. Her eyes, however, flicked between me and Ed. Then she pursed her lips.

"You said that we'd need a large injection of cash."

Ed frowned as he sat. "The spa idea? To have it as your sole income here, absolutely. It would have to be high end to attract the high end clientele."

"Right," said Fi, and shuffled her papers.

"We went through this last week," I said. "I thought we decided that it just wouldn't work."

"Yes," said Fi, slowly, "except that was last week. _This_ week," she said, "I have a provisional offer from a certain massive cosmetics conglomerate, which wishes to remain anonymous."

Ed leaned forward. "An offer of what?"

"Sponsorship, in return for investment."

Ed glanced at me, then back at Fifi. "What was the offer?"

Her smile became both wider and more insincere. "I'm glad you asked. Here." She passed a paper across to him.

He read it. Then he swore.

* * *

I told Mum. I had to. It changed everything. I mean, our situation was already pretty precarious, and now? She went pale. She frowned. Then dinner was ready and we had to sit, both churning things over, through coq au vin and plum crumble. When we had finished we said we'd do the washing up. Mari was surprised. It was clear, all over her face. Neither Mum nor I are particularly domesticated. Cooking, general cleaning sense and an ability to separate washing correctly eludes both of us. Mari, however, in the absence of Dad, normally takes over. For all her dramatic paddies and inability to hide her feelings, she bakes a good cake, and is surprisingly efficient with a scrubbing brush. She had cooked and washed up so far every night since she had come home, with a rotating door of helpers, from John and Fi's son Xander (mean with a potato peeler) to John himself, liberally pouring wine into most dishes, and even Mags who instigated military precision in the washing-up process. They all, in fact, looked a little concerned. Last time Mum and I washed up, several things broke, and most things still had lasagne on them. They swallowed their concern however, and left us in peace. The door swung closed, and Mum sat down again, heavily.

"I'll put the kettle on."

She looked up at me, wryly. "I don't think I've heard that phrase so many times in my life as I have this last month."

I threw the dishes into the sink and set the hot tap on them. They could soak for a while. Tap off, I threw tea leaves into the pot, and poured on the water, before sitting down opposite Mum, mugs at the ready.

"So," she eventually said. "Fi is turning this place into a spa."

"And I'm out of a job."

She put her head on one side. "You couldn't run it?"

"I'm the estate manager," I said, "not business manager. I'm the house and the gardens and the grounds. I don't have the first clue about running a business like that. I mean…I spend half my day in wellies and wrangling with the gardeners."

Mum nodded as she poured the tea. "Not schmoozing with Cindy Crawford and Gwyneth Paltrow."

"I don't even know who they are!" I said, panicking slightly.

"Of course you do," said Mum, patting my hand. "One of them is the tall, willowy model, and the other one is the tall, willowy actress. You know? The one with all the goopy organic things…"

The panic subsided. "Oh…yeah. OK." I sighed. "I can't do it."

Mum looked at me, shrewdly. "And Fi knows it," she said.

I rubbed my aching forehead, and took a sip of tea. My face must have shown the resignation.

"Is it because of you and Edward?"

My head must have snapped up at that.

She looked defensive. "Not that I mind," she said. "I just wondered…"

"We're just friends!"

She smiled. "OK."

"We are!"

She patted my hand again. "OK," she said again, less patronisingly. "I'm not sure that Fifi knows it though."

"No," I said, rubbing my forehead again. "I suspected that she thought something was going on. I don't know why she cares…"

Mum smiled. "She likes things to stay a certain way," she said. "When I married your father there were plenty of people who thought that I should have refused him, and let him marry someone else."

"Someone of his own class?" Even I could hear the derision in my voice.

"Someone that they could understand," she said quietly. "Someone like them. Someone who thought like them. Your father and me, dragging you all off for caravan holidays every year absolutely horrified them."

"We should have been skiing in Aspen?"

She smiled. "Something like that." She shrugged. "Fi is just the same. She fears change."

"And yet she wants to chuck out years of work on this place and make way for a luxurious health spa!"

"She wants to be useful, and do the work she knows how to do. Mucking about in her wellies every day, standing waist-deep in the stream every winter cleaning out the weed, supervising grouting and grouse shooting…can you see her doing any of that?"

"No," I said, feeling tears rising. "_I_ do all of that."

"And what would she do?" asked Mum. "What space is there for her, here?"

I felt my inner six year old revolting. I scowled. "There isn't," I said. "She can just go back to London."

Mum smiled. So did I. Reluctantly.

"Fine," I said. "She needs to be useful. I get that. I just…I wish that it wasn't at the expense of my job, because if I haven't a job, then we haven't got any money coming in, and then we can't afford to stay here, free rent or not."

"I know," said Mum, "and I'm going to be totally useless over this, I'm telling you now. It has been over twenty-five years since I moved house, let alone had a paying job."

I pulled one of the rough copies of the funeral order of service towards me that was lying on the table. "So," I said, feeling efficient again, and therefore less scared, "I need a job." I clicked the pen out and began writing.

Mum sighed and relaxed. "Yes," she said, sitting back.

"And once I know where I'm working, then we need somewhere to live."

"Yes," said Mum, with a little less certainty.

"And then we'll need a school for Mags."

"And a job for me."

I looked up at her. "Not yet," I said. "That doesn't even need to go on the list yet."

"I'm going to contribute," she said.

"You do."

"Ellis."

I gave her a look. One of 'your-husband-just-died-and-you-don't-need-this'. I hoped it would be enough. With a sigh, I continued. "So, I just now need to find one of the many Estate Manager jobs that are always sloshing around the job websites," I said, beginning to doodle on the paper.

Mum looked concerned. "You think it'll be hard?"

"I don't know," I said. "There a seriously limited number of estates and therefore estate managers…"

"Phone Cliff," she said. "He'll know people."

"Maybe," I said. "I might email him."

Mum drained her tea, and stood up. "Go and do it now," she said. "I'll do the washing up."

Her expression, seconds before, floated back before my eyes. A kind of desperate, unhappy determination laced her face, and I didn't want to see it again. I pushed the possibility of her having a job aside for the moment. She didn't need any other worries. So I nodded. "OK," I said. "Thank you." I was midway up the stairs before I heard the first of the night's breakages. I stopped, smiled, and then continued.

* * *

The rest of the evening was awkward. Fi knew that she had just, to all intents and purposes, fired me. She also knew that her brother knew and was unimpressed enough to have sworn, yelled at her, then walked out. She also could presume that the protracted time that Mum and I spent in the kitchen with a distinct lack of washing-up sound effects could only mean that we had, indeed, talked it all out. With the looks she was firing at Mari and Mags, I could only presume that she thought I had told them too. How little she knows us. Had they known there would have been plank-walkings and, in all likelihood, blood-lettings. As it was, Mari made the most of a rousing evening of movie charades to give Fi such easy things to mime as _Eraserhead, Un chien andalou _and, my personal favourite after seeing Fi throw the towel in after a protracted, silent mime of the entire narrative, _The Matrix._ Ed caught my eye several times throughout, and smirked. Every time this happened, I looked up to find Fi, eyes narrowed, looking right back at me. Mum, it appears, may have been right. I returned to my bedroom, three hours later, spent from all the repressed anger, secrets, and confusion at whether I actually found Ed attractive or whether it was all Fi, in my head, to find an email back from Cliff.

_Ellis, love, _it read,

_I don't need to ask around. I know of a very interesting position, about to open up. Could you come down here, maybe sometime this week, and I can tell you all about it? I think you'll find that making the trip will be worthwhile. _

_Much love,_

_Cliff_

I turned the computer off, turned my light off, and tried to sleep. Twenty minutes later, I realised that I couldn't. Something about that email had me excited. Something about it screamed Dad. Something about it nagged Dad's favourite quote from his favourite film at me. _Go on, Ellis,_ it said. _Make your life extraordinary.

* * *

_

**Yes. That's right. It's a Sense and Sensibility/Northanger Abbey crossover. In the same universe as _The Dumbest Thing_ no less. Crazy? Possibly. But this baby is a lot more manageable than my original plan of a few years ago wherein I tried to do them all. At once. And nearly died. I should apologise, however, to anyone coming from the NA end of things, as it will not be very evident until Chapter Three. Have no fear, however. It'll happen, craziness and all. **

**It's not quite the same style as _TDT_ as several people's comments made it clear that my style was, at times, baffling. I'm afraid that I'm still not one for laying out all the facts at day one. I hope you'll stick around long enough to see things through though. Also, I didn't think that I was one for angst until I wrote _TDT_ and then they spent a lot of time in stressful situations. I still avoid it, if at all possible, but it wasn't until I started writing this that I remembered just how angsty _S&S_ is to start with. _NA_ should balance it out nicely. All that whackadoodlery. **

**Many thanks to LJ who hounded me into starting to post this, and laughed while she read it.  
**

**It goes without saying that _Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, Star Trek, Veronica Mars, Eraserhead, Un chien andalou, The Matrix _and _Dead Poet's Society_ are all not mine. Oh, that they were.**

**_(Several days later, and only one review, and I started to think that everyone hated me, until I noticed that actual crossovers don't show up on the list. So. It's now S&S. Part II may well be NA. You'll have to keep on your toes. Sorry about that.) _  
**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Two nights later, and I still couldn't sleep. I had been exhausted, and would have bet anyone everything in my wallet (much good it would do them- two cinema tickets from last year and an out of date young person's railcard) that the second my head hit the pillow, I would have been out for the count. As it turns out, I would have lost. I lay there in the darkness, eyes wide open, mind zapping, and, just as I reached for my phone to check the time, it rang, under my fingers. Thanks to an extremely dorky personalised ring tone, I didn't need to check who it was before answering.

"It's a good thing for you that I wasn't asleep."

He laughed. "What would you have done?" he asked. "Driven six hours north and then given me the pounding of a life time?"

"It has been a long day, Edward," I said, not without a heavy icing of prim, school-marmishness. "If I had been asleep, you would have deserved…it."

"Yadda, yadda, yadda."

"Hey!"

He laughed down the line. "Deserved_ it_?" he said. "I can tell it's been a long day."

I sighed in resignation. "You're impossible."

I heard a certain smile shoot down the line. "So," he said. "How's it all going? Having a nice time down there while we slave away up here in the bleak and misty north?"

"First," I said, "it is wild and untamed, epic in its beauty and mysterious in its charms."

"You mean cold and windy?"

"Second," I said, ignoring his idiocy, "you are not slaving. I have known you, what, two weeks, and you have not worked hard for one day of that, except, perhaps, to hide from your sister."

He snorted down the phone. "It's so nice to know that I can count on my friends for support, El," he said. "Can I have you as a character reference in case I ever need it?"

"No," I said, and turned over in bed. The springs creaked ominously.

"Where are you?" he asked. "In a pirate ship?"

I sighed. "Yes, Ed, I am in a pirate ship."

He snorted again.

"So how are things at home? Besides your sister plotting her evil plots, I mean."

"You really do have a brilliant grasp on the English language. It's like you're Shakespeare, reborn."

"Shut up."

He laughed. "It's fine. Your Mum and I are both assiduously avoiding Fi like the plague. Maggie is busy planning a trip to the Shetlands to view Sea Otters…"

"Of course."

"…and Mari is packing up to go back down to Oxford."

The sound of his voice had slowly been lulling me to sleep. That information however woke me up again. "What?" I asked. "Already?"

"It has been over two weeks. She's going to fail if she doesn't return soon."

"Great," I said, grimly.

He sighed. "She'll need to finish up the year, pass her exams, get her degree," he said, slowly, "or else how is she going to earn her keep?"

"Nice."

He sighed again. "You know what I mean. The last thing she needs after the last month she's had is then to fail her degree. It'd be like a slap in the face after breaking your leg…or something."

"Now who's the wordsmith?"

"El…"

"I know," I said, "and I don't mean to be so crabby."

"You're not."

I sighed, and contemplated kicking the wall. The chance of very old plaster flying out and whacking me in the head was a very real possibility. I thought better of it.

"How's it going down there?" he asked, smoothly changing the subject. "What was the interesting prospect?"

I turned over again as the jumbled thoughts of the day smoothed out in front of me. "Cliff wants a new Estate Manager."

"What?"

"Yeah," I said, nodding to myself. "The last guy really screwed him over, and after everything that happened down here last month…well he feels reasonably guilty about it."

"Why?" asked Ed, through a mouthful of something. I didn't bother asking. No doubt it would be horribly processed, hideously un-nutritious and incredibly delicious.

"He is the reason that Dad got where he was. It was Cliff's dad who instigated the scholarship at the school, and then a few years later when he died, it was Cliff himself who saw that Dad had everything he needed. He helped him set up the business, he found the clients. And it was Cliff who organised the cruise."

Ed sucked in his breath. "_The_ cruise?"

"Yeah."

He was silent for a moment. "Why wasn't he the one who was sued?"

I winced as the truth of the matter came crashing down. "Because he didn't have as much to lose. All he has is wrapped up in an entirely unprofitable estate. Dad owned the shipping company. They stood to gain much more from suing us than suing Cliff."

He sighed. "It's an ugly business."

"Yep."

He was silent again for a moment, then, "don't you just want to punch this Cliff in the face? I mean…seriously."

"He's my Godfather."

"So?"

I smiled. "No, Ed. I wasn't his fault, and it wasn't Dad's fault. No one was solely to blame."

"But you've lost everything, and he's just lost a bit of business." He was silent for a few seconds. "Seriously, El. You are the most gracious, non-money-grubbing, extraordinary person. Ever."

I smiled a little. "I think it's more like massive push-over."

"No," he said, decisively, "whoever gets to marry you is a lucky man."

Everything Mum had said and Fi had implied came rushing in. I tried to stamp them down, but they rose, before my eyes. "I…well, I…" I started, finding that I had turned into a stammering school girl.

"He'd be a fool not to give you the job," said Ed, swerving back to topic. "I hope it works out."

"I…yes. Me too."

"And hey," he added, "if it does, I'll only be a few hours away, right? Maybe I could come and visit sometime?"

_Once I had a secret love_ rose to a crescendo in my ears. My traitorous, musical loving ears. Damn them. "Sure," I said, with an ever-so attractive quaver to my voice.

"Cool," he said. "Well, I'd better go. Leave you bright eyed and all that to wow that Cliff character tomorrow."

"All right," I said, struggling to maintain control. "Sleep well." Sleep well? What was I, his Grandma?

"You too," he said. "See you soon." Then he hung up.

I turned my light back on. The chances now of sleeping were slim to none. I reached for, and flicked open _Wuthering Heights. _For once, I barely took in any of the words.

* * *

I got home the next night just as the sun was setting. Mum came out to meet me.

"So?" she asked. "What happened?"

"Where are the others?" I asked, pulling together my bags from the back of the car.

She waved a vague hand. "Around. Inside, I think. Nowhere near here. So?"

I took a deep breath. "He offered me a job. Estate Manager of Barton Park."

Mum's face was a rich tapestry of emotions. She took a deep breath, then hugged me. "Then we're going back to Barton."

"Mum…" I tried to start.

She waved the hand again. "It's a job, sweetheart. Maybe the only one we're going to find for a while. If we have to move, then we should do it in good time for Maggie to be settled before she starts back to school after the summer. Who would you rather work for than Cliff?"

I shrugged, locked the car, and hefted my bags simultaneously. I turns out, none of them are that easy to do while doing other things. "He's my Godfather," I said. "I've never worked for him. Only taken his spurious spiritual advice."

Mum smiled slowly, and took one of my bags from me as we headed back to the house. "And that with a pinch of salt."

"I'll say."

We paused on the steps and watched the last sliver of sun disappear. She turned to me. "Did you look into somewhere to live?"

The Red Kites were flying high enough to still catch the sun. They looked magical. I sighed, despising the thought that they weren't mine anymore. "There's holiday accommodation on the estate. Cliff reckons that he can get it sorted out in a couple of weeks."

"He doesn't want it for paying guests?"

I shrugged. "He'd rather I got to work."

Mum slung an arm around me. "He's a good man, Ellie-Em. I think it's a good thing."

"It's _Barton_."

She shrugged right back. "Yeah, but this last month aside, I also met your Dad there."

"You _want_ to go back?" I asked, somewhat incredulously.

She smiled. "No. But this is a job, Cliff is like family, and it was home for years. You never know. This might be the best move we ever made."

I let out a long gush of breath as the night closed in. "Fine," I said. "But now we have to tell them."

She winced. "Yeah," she said slowly. "About that…I think you should do it."

* * *

Ed was sitting at the kitchen table, pretending to work on his laptop, but really, he was watching Mari bake. The expectation of devouring delicious cake was clear in his eyes. She, meanwhile, was silent, and busy with an oven glove. It was remarkable that I could really take in any of this given that I had three-fold bad news to give to Mari and the coffee cake that she had just taken out of the oven smelled out of this world.

"Uh, Miz?" I began tentatively.

"Hmm?"

"Could I talk to you for a second?"

Her back was to me, as she fiddled around with the oven shelves.

"Sure," she said, jiggling the shelves harder, trying to push them back in.

Ed caught my eye. I gestured out of the room. He grimaced, gathered up his things, and said, "I'll just get out your hair, Mari. Be sure to save me some cake." His voice was all lightness. His expression toward me at having taken away warm, fresh coffee cake was not.

As the door swung shut behind him, Mari swung round. "Thank goodness," she groaned, and immediately abandoned the oven.

"What? You were…avoiding him?"

She shrugged. "He was boring me out of my mind."

"Mari!"

She sat down at the table, heavily. "He doesn't have an opinion on _anything. _Not a favourite film, or a favourite book, or even favourite music. Apparently he'll watch, read and listen to anything."

"So?" I said. "He's easy."

"He's _boring_," she said, slumping across the floury table. "He doesn't have an original thought in his tiny brain."

"Hey!"

She turned her face to look at me as I also sat down. "What?" she said. "You can fancy him. I don't mind…"

"First," I said, "we are not twelve. Fancying is not part of my repertoire these days."

She grinned. "More fool you."

"Secondly," I said, "I don't."

She grinned some more, head still on the table, with a stunning disregard for everything still strewn across it. "Liar," she said.

"I don't!"

"OK, Cleopatra."

"What?" I regretted asking straight away.

She smirked. "Queen of…"

"OK," I butted in, "but I'm not. I…like him, I think."

"Wow," she said, finally sitting up. "Cool your jets there missy, or your burning lust is going to set fire to something."

"Funny."

She smiled. "I thought so. Shall I put _Burning Love_ on? I'll bet Ed likes it."

"All right," I said, kicking her. "Give me a cookie. I want to talk to you about something."

She rolled her eyes, leaned over and fished a still-warm peanut butter-chocolate chip cookie off the cooling rack.

"Thank you," I said, and broke some off. Then I nearly forgot everything I had come in there to say. _That _good. "So," I said, regaining some semblance of my mind, "I've found somewhere to move."

She raised an eyebrow. "I thought John said we could stay."

"He did," I started, "but I don't think that it was entirely open-ended. Plus," I added, "my job soon won't exist anymore."

She frowned. "Why?"

I winced. "It's kind of being dissolved."

Mari fought hard to keep her emotions in check. She vented by scratching at a groove in the grain of the table. I tried not to slap her hands away. "Bloody Fi," she muttered. "Stupid, ruddy, stupid…"

"It's done," I said. "She wants to start something here which incidentally dissolves my job. Maybe," I said, gaining momentum, "maybe it's a good push to get out of here."

She looked at me, hard. "You and Mum have been saying 'maybe' a lot these last few weeks."

"I know…"

"Because nothing," she went on, "_nothing_, is certain anymore."

She shot out of her chair and started pacing the room. Unfortunately, Fi chose that moment to come in. "YOU!" bellowed Mari, and started towards her.

"Could you give us a moment?" I asked, and, for once, she retreated, with a heart-warmingly terrified expression on her face. That'll teach her. Mari slammed into the now closed-again door, and thumped it with her fists. I gave her a second to catch her breath.

"Mari," I began, slowly. "Cliff has offered me a new job."

She turned, still leaning on the door. "Cliff Middleton?"

"Yeah."

She blinked, heavily. "Barton? We're going back to Barton?"

"Yeah."

She slid down the door, landing in a heap of elbows and knees on the floor. "Why on earth would you choose to go there? They'll hate us."

"No…"

She raised an incredulous eyebrow. "Yeah. OK."

"They won't."

She shook her head. "We could stay here a bit longer, couldn't we? You could look for a different job? We could…"

I stood up, picked up another couple of cookies, then sat down beside her. "We could," I said, "if it weren't for the fact that we have barely any money."

She paused, cookie midway to her mouth. "What?"

I sighed. "They sued us."

"Who?"

I winced. "The people of Barton?"

She rolled her head back, irrespective of the whack it made against the door. "Barton," she muttered darkly.

"Yeah," I said.

"They can't have taken every…"

"Everything," I said, completing her sentence. "They went for, and took everything except the investments Dad made for each of us."

Mari thumped her head against the door again. "Mine's mainly gone," she said. "University ate most of it."

"Mine too," I said. "Maggie's is still there, though Mum won't touch it."

She sat in silence for a moment. I didn't dare say anything. Then, she sighed. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Creeping guilt snaked its way up the back of my neck. "I'm sorry," I said. "I should have."

She let out a hissing breath through her teeth. "I probably would have been more of a hindrance than help," she said, gloomily.

"No…"

She smiled, ruefully, mirthlessly, and shrugged. "You know, I am _trying_ to be less melodramatic."

I slipped an arm round her shoulders. "You've been invaluable. Don't you dare change."

She smiled again. "Old Marianne, you realise, would at this information probably go for a long walk in the rain and not tell anyone where she was. For hours."

"Maybe a day."

She nodded, sagely.

"OK," I conceded. "I like the new model too. Just don't, I don't know…"

"Go native?"

I found a grin pulling at my mouth. "Yes."

She slipped her arm back round me too. "We'll get through this." She smiled with unaccustomed sense and then let out a gusty breath. "_When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions."_

"Your own, Jeeves?"

She grinned back. "The Bard, actually."

I nodded, slowly. "Beardy? Inky? Impossibly hot? You know…Jacob Phones…?"

"Joseph Fiennes?" she asked, patronisingly. "Yes, except, you know, probably not as hot, and probably not as many teeth."

"Disappointing."

She smiled again. "OK," she said. "You should probably know right now that Christopher Marlow was also not as hot as Rupert Everett made out."

"Was he the one in _A Room with a View _with that Holly Bingham-Catchpole_?"_

She gave me a look. "No. That was Rupert Graves and Helena Bonham Carter."

"Oh."

She shook her head slowly. "And people think that I'm the annoying one."

* * *

In her mercy, Mum told Maggie. She told me about it later. The words _tree-house_ and _lake_ were bellowed, along with _hell-hounds, barbecued billy-goats _and _mutton-headed galloots_. Mum placated her with the fact that there was a tree-house years ago on the Barton property, and maybe we could restore it, and the fact that the sea was a short scramble down the cliff path away. Maggie was not amused. She went to bed muttering about how Alan Quartermain didn't have to put up with this kind of nonsense. Given her reaction to being told she had to wear a dress for Dad's funeral, we all thought that we got off lightly. That was until the next morning, when she couldn't be found.

"It sounds more like me than her," said Mari, pulling on her boots. Her car was packed and waiting to go back to Oxford, but right now, this was more important. We were all astutely not thinking of all the times we'd vaguely warned Mags about not drowning in the lake or trying to climb the older of the trees. Ed appeared in the kitchen, dressed and ready to go, and gestured out the door for me to follow.

Outside it was already starting to warm up. The dew was thick, and the mist clung in the hollows, but it only served to promise the sun, later. We started down, past the birds starting to wake up in their aviaries, and off towards the lake.

"She told me that she wanted to run away to China," Ed said, breaking the silence eventually. "Not that I think she's going there," he added. "I just…"

"I know," I said, and I did. The silence was awkward, and scary. He smiled, and as easily as a breath, he took my hand in his.

"Come on," he said. "Let's try the tree-house."

His hand was warm. The contact was friendly, and easy. My breath, however, caught in my throat. We walked over the bridge spanning the outlet of the lake, then up the steep hill on the other side. On the top, the slope flattened out, and on the edge was the big old oak with the tree-house built around it.

"Please be here, please be here," I heard myself mutter out loud. Ed squeezed my hand. Then he cupped the other hand around his mouth.

"MAGGIE!" he yelled. The sound bounced down the valley. Somewhere below, on the other side of the lake, a bird squawked.

I took a deep breath, then climbed the ladder. Inside, the tree-house was spotless, with maps pinned across the walls, extra pins rammed into the places that she wanted to go to. It was, however, devoid of Maggie. I took a deep breath, squashed down the flutter of panic, then turned to see Ed climb onto the veranda outside, and straighten up, before walking in. He glanced around, then grimaced.

"All right then," he said. "Where else?"

I sighed. "Anywhere. Of all of us, she knows the estate the best. She's climbed every tree, swum in all of the lakes and ponds, scaled every rock face…" I rubbed at the back of my neck. "She could be anywhere."

He looked at me hard, strode over, and hugged me. "OK", he said. "We can do this. Where did the others go?"

I wrenched my thoughts back to Maggie, and not to how his arms felt around me. "Uh…Mari's going to the farm and will ask them if there's anyone to spare to help, and to keep an eye out. They'll check all of their buildings, and Mari will drop into the old water-mill on her way there. John was taking the dogs and going across the fields to the village. Mum and Fi were staying at the house and gardens. As soon as people turn up for work they'll be sent to check out all the commercial areas, though she's not likely to be there."

"OK," he said again, wandering around the wooden room, touching the maps lightly. "What about…" He trailed off as he looked through one of the windows back to the house. A smile spread across his face. I mentally scolded myself for a) marvelling at how a relatively unremarkable, though friendly face could be transformed by a smile, and b) that my first thought was for his handsomeness and not for _why_ he was smiling. I pulled myself together.

"What?"

He grabbed one of my hands, and pulled me to the window. "Look."

I looked out across the wooded hill, over the misty lake, the squawking foreshore, and back up the gently sloping grass to the terrace and the house, with its statued and crenelated roof silhouetted against the morning sky. "What?" I asked again. All I could see was everything I was about to give up. It was like a punch in the stomach seeing it all at one go.

He grinned again. "There is one extra statue."

I looked again. Sure enough, one of the figures who, at first glance, appeared to be one of the statues which edge the roof line, was at second look, moving. That, and the flag bearing the family crest which normally flew largely for the pleasure of the tourists was, today, not flying. It had been replaced with a Jolly Roger. "Dammit," I murmured. "I'm going to kill her."

Ed smirked, and all but giggled all the way back to the house. At least, I think he was. I left him behind as I sprinted back up the hill to the house, barrelled into the house, up the stairs, and up the twisty stairs to the roof.

"Maggie?"

She sat down, slowly, purposefully, and began the strains of _We Shall Overcome_ on her recorder.

"Maggie," I said again, this time less pleading, and more threatening.

She eyed me over the recorder, and carried on, regardless.

Ed burst out behind me onto the roof. "Wow," he muttered, peering over the edge. "High. Really…high." He swallowed and turned to Maggie.

She stopped playing and looked at him, very distastefully. "I thought that at least _you_ would have been on my side."

He smiled a little, then straightened it out. "I am Mags," he said, all seriousness, "but Ellis is only doing what is best for you."

She raised an eyebrow.

"She needs a job to be able to pay for things…"

Mags made a dismissive sound, and moved to start playing again.

"…and that job happens to not be here. I rather suspect that she's more gutted about leaving here than any of the rest of you."

Maggie paused.

Ed looked at me. "Right?" he asked. He turned back to Mags, and sat down next to her. "You know," he said in a lower tone, which I took to be conspiratorial. I turned away, but not so far that I couldn't hear them. "You know," he continued, "that she's heartbroken about leaving."

I hadn't said it out loud. I'm not sure I truly felt it until then. It was like another punch to the stomach. I felt winded.

"If she could stay," Ed continued, "she would. But you guys haven't any money, and if there's no money, then there's no chance of China in the future."

Maggie seemed to weigh this for a second. "I suppose," she said slowly.

"And if there is no tree-house, I will personally come and build you something, somewhere."

I winced at the promise, knowing that it wasn't our land and certainly not our trees, but still, his reassurance to Mags was touching. I turned to see her nod, slowly. "Maybe," she said, then looked up and caught my eye. "What about the dogs?"

I sighed, and shook my head. "There are too many of them, and it'll be too small. John will take good care of them. It just wouldn't be fair otherwise."

Maggie's lower lip trembled just for a second.

"Maybe something smaller?" said Ed, slowly, his eyebrows raised at me.

I sighed again. "Maybe a rabbit."

"Maybe a rat?"

I swallowed my immediate reaction of 'hell, no," and said, "maybe."

She rolled her eyes, then nodded slowly. "OK," she said, and stood up, picking up her recorder.

"Come on," said Ed, with an arm slung around her shoulders. "Let's go and get some breakfast."

They walked over to me, and with a hand on my back, Ed guided both of us to the stairs.

"Just so you know," said Maggie, "this sucks."

"Don't I know it," I said, and saw Ed smile out of the corner of my eye.

* * *

Mari left to go back to Oxford that afternoon. Maggie relapsed into loud silences and dirty looks, but at least, at last, things were going somewhere. Mum and I started to organise and pack, and both inner-bewailed the fact that most of our much loved furniture was actually part of the house. We already knew it, and it's not like the many-thousand-pound chandeliers would suit a three bedroom holiday cottage, but it was still hard to take. John was very generous. Fi matched Maggie's dirty expressions look for look, especially when John insisted on our taking some of the paintings. After all of our personal things were sorted, it turned out that there wasn't much to take. I sent a few frantic emails down to Barton to ask them if we could use the furniture in the old holiday cottage. Leisurely, measured replies winged their way back saying _Of course_ and _we'd be delighted._ I sighed a gust of relief, and Mum carefully packed some of the larger and less useful of her belongings away for safe keeping in the expansive Norland attics.

* * *

Several weeks later, and with an impressive amount of stuff, despite all we were leaving behind, we were just about ready to go. I got up early that morning, and slunk out to the birds. Dad started it, bringing in exotic birds, ones that used to be native, and some home-grown talents. The enclosures started out smallish and huddled in the corner of the estate. Twenty years on, and the aviary had become extensive. Some of my favourites, however, were not particularly fancy. The Red Kites that had been re-released just a few years ago flew so high sometimes that it could take my breath away. The tiny ducks with their sleek heads and fast feet would come and say hello, heads bobbing, eyes bright. But it was the storks that made my heart ache to leave them. "They bless a house," I had told Ed, just a few nights ago. It had taken realising how close a friend he was to allow an introduction to them. He deserved it. He had raised an eyebrow. "You can say that?" he asked. "You who has been through so much?" I had shrugged. After all, I believe in the storks. They clack their beaks, and land awkwardly occasionally, and wheel lazily over the lake, and I never get tired of them. They are always magical.

Standing the in the morning light, I sighed and watched them stir in the tree tops.

"You're going to miss them."

I spun around to see Ed, walking down the path, carrying something.

I shrugged. "Of course."

He stopped next to me. "Maybe they'll follow you."

"No."

He tipped his head on one side, and look at me. "It'll be all right."

For once, the emotion bubbled up in me, and I couldn't press it down. It rushed too fast, thick in my throat and stinging my eyes. "How?"

He frowned in sympathy, and then smiled a little. "Maybe with this?" He put the wrapped bundle into my hands. Covered in tissue-paper it was heavier than I expected. "You didn't have to," I said, peeling off layers of paper one after another.

He said nothing until the last layer was removed, revealing a tin stork, gleaming in the sunshine, its wings folded, its face looking down, peacefully. "Ed…" I breathed.

"It's so that you'll be blessed in your new house." He smiled. "You deserve it."

I hugged the stork to my chest, regardless of the sharp edges and uncomfortable lines. "Thank you," I said, and reached out my other hand to the back of his neck. Suddenly, I found myself pulling him down and kissing him. The stork was awkward between us, and for a second, he did nothing, but just as I started to pull away, he kissed me back. Then he rested his forehead against mine.

"Ellis," he murmured.

"I know. I'm going away. My whole life is starting again. I just…" I looked up at him. "I just wanted to say thank you."

He looked shaken, but he laughed a little. "You did that," he said. "_Very_ well." He stepped back, suddenly awkward, and unsure.

"I don't expect anything," I said, seeing his expression. "_Really_. I know things are awkward with your family, and heaven knows I've got a mountain to climb with mine."

He drew a hand over his face. "It's not that, El. It's just…"

"It's fine," I said. "You don't have to explain. Life is complicated enough." I reached up and kissed his cheek. "Goodbye, Ed," I said, then walked away, the stork still clutched to my chest, and hot tears streaming down my cheeks. It was the sensible thing. It was the right thing. It was also, however, the hardest thing that I had ever done in my life.

* * *

**As ever, _Sense and Sensibility _is not mine. Neither is _Once I Had A Secret Love_. Nor are most of Maggie's piratical exclamations. They were written by Jane Austen, Sammy Fain & Paul Francis Webster, and Arthur Ransome respectively. **

**Thank you to my reviewers. And readers. And those who craft cake for a living. And whoever's idea it was to put _Ace of Cakes_ on the Food Network. You all help me keep writing. **


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

The first time I ever laid eyes on Brandon Moreland, he was hunched over the counter, one elbow propped next to him, a fork in hand, surveying with a frown on his face a piece of cake in front of him.

"Hi," I began.

He pushed the cake towards me. "What's wrong with this?"

"Uh…"

He handed me the fork, and looked impatient. I took a bite, and nearly died of happiness.

"Nothing," I said, in full and total certainty that I had given him the right answer.

From his expression, it was not the right answer. He frowned again. "No," he said, and reached for the fork.

"Wait, OK, I'll try again," I said, horrified that, with this open invitation to cake in front of me, I may have been about to screw it up. I took another bite. I very nearly groaned in satisfaction. I stopped myself just in time. He was watching me, eyebrows raised.

"Well? What's wrong with it?"

The nutty, chocolatey aftermath of wonderment left me a little giddy. "It's _too_ good?" I asked.

"Fine." He took the cake back, and frowned at it again. He took a bite, and frowned some more.

"How are you frowning while eating that cake? It's the best thing I've ever eaten."

He looked at me, a little incredulously, and shook his head. "It's not right," he said, simply, then shrugged. "Anyway. What can I get for you?"

"I would say the rest of that cake, except…actually…" I said, reluctantly, as the cake was, I think, talking to me, "the Manager."

"Anything to drink with that?"

I wondered for a second if he had either misheard me or ignored me. The line of his lips, however, betrayed that neither was the case.

"Coffee, please," I said.

For a few seconds he busied himself with coffee machine behind him. Then, with a steaming mug of coffee put in front of me, and a glance around at the largely empty café, he fished a cup of tea out from under the counter, and sat down opposite me.

"Brandon Moreland," he said, offering the hand not curled around the mug. "Unwilling Manager of the Delaford Kitchen."

This last week, since leaving Norland, my smile had been often used and rarely real. Between probing questions about men we had left behind and a stunning revelation of just how much attention Maggie really did pay to conversations going on around her, not to mention mutinous murmuring from my said younger sister at the size of our new home, or rather, flat, and wheedling questions to Cliff about the soon repair of the tree-house by my 'beau' (at that point, somewhere between embarrassment and annoyance, I made a note to find Mags some more recent books to read), my smile had nearly cracked my cheeks and fractured my jaw. In amongst these moments of embarrassment and secrets, I was plagued with doubts about Ed. It felt like I should never have kissed him. It felt like that was maybe the reason that he hadn't contacted us at all. More than anything, it felt like I desperately wanted to just forget him, just for now. If I had screwed up, and if I wasn't going to see him again, I just wanted his face to be sponged out of my memory. Proactively, I had decidedly packed away the metal stork. It was too much of a reminder. As ever, however, the effort of not showing any of this on my face had left it aching. Brandon, however, somehow drew out the first real smile in days. He was taller, broader, and older than Ed. His face didn't spring into a smile as quickly. His humour was drier. More than anything, he was potentially about to be the saving grace in what was starting to appear to be a mission: impossible.

"Ellis…uh, _Elinor_ Dashwood," I said, taking his hand and shaking, "sucker-for-punishment Estate Manager of Barton Park.

"Ah," he said. "I wondered when I'd meet you." He paused. "It looks that bad?"

I winced. "I shouldn't have said anything," I started, "but, uh … yeah. Pretty much."

He nodded slowly. "In that case," he said, and pushed the cake back towards me, "you'll probably need this."

I looked from him to the cake, and wondered how he imagined that I could conduct business over such good baking. "Thank you," I said. I managed to not eat any for a minute. I took a sip of coffee instead.

"My sister says that the gardens would be a hard job for a small army," he said, slowly.

The sinking feeling that had been pulling at me for days returned. I quashed it with cake. "Well, yes," I said, and he nodded. "I came to talk to you, though," I said.

He arched an eyebrow. "Radcliff sent you?" he asked, dryly.

"Uh…"

He rolled his eyes. "He has been in and out since I got here a few weeks ago."

"Just a few weeks ago?" I asked, wondering what on earth Cliff was thinking, suggesting someone to run a café on the estate who only had a few weeks experience.

He gave me a long, appraising look. Then he shrugged a little, sipped his tea, and said, "this is my father's business. I would never have chosen it," he added, looking around. "There's nowhere really to prepare food back here, besides making sandwiches and cutting cake." He fished another fork out from under the counter, and stole a mouthful of the cake. "Anyway," he continued, "he was in the accident."

Guilt washed over me. I felt red hot embarrassment flush my face. "Oh, I'm sorry…" I began.

"He's fine," he interrupted. "He had a heart attack after the hitting the water, with all the stress and…well, you know," he said, meaningfully. "He wasn't well enough to work, though, and this café is his livelihood, so I came down to run it for him until he gets back on his feet."

The heat slowly left my face. I took a bite of cake to stall. "So," I said eventually, "what do you, or maybe…did you do in London?"

A twitch of pride flickered across his face. "I run a restaurant," he said.

"Any good?"

The flicker of pride was followed by a quick and reluctant smile. "Two star."

"Michelin?"

He nodded, slowly.

I nodded in return and had another forkful. "Accounts for the cake," I said, and his smile lasted an extra second. "How long do you imagine that you're staying here?" I asked.

He shrugged, non-committally. "I really couldn't say."

"You're not gasping to get back?"

He shrugged again. "I've enjoyed being here more than I thought I would. It's been a good fourteen years that I've been in London and I think I had missed my family and the sea and the open space a lot more than I had ever imagined."

"But?"

"I need to cook," he said, exasperated. "There's no space, and the oven is dreadful, and Dad will want to come back eventually, in some capacity. My staying, despite enjoying it in some ways, doesn't seem very likely."

My opening had arrived. I pushed the cake away. It was, after all, a major distraction. "What would you say to much larger premises; equipment, ovens, everything of your choice; sea views from the counter and the potential for brilliant business?"

"I'd say who did you sell your soul to?"

"Sir Radcliff Middleton."

He leaned back, turning his mug between his palms. "Radcliff?" he repeated.

"Look," I said, determinedly not looking at the cake, "Cliff's whole estate rejuvenation plan is for the purpose of keeping the town going. For the estate to work, however, there has got to be interest _from_ the town. One view round the house and gardens won't bring in much revenue."

"Right…" he said, slowly.

"So, we need to make it part of the town. A meeting place. Something to work with the town, not against it."

"OK…" he said.

I was gaining momentum. I could feel it. "We're talking about fresh produce, maybe a garden centre of some kind, maybe a gift shop, but definitely, certainly a café."

"And you want me to run it?"

"After this cake," I said, taking another forkful, not leaving much left, "you can do whatever the hell you like."

He rubbed his jaw. "What are the premises? They'd need to be big enough to be better than here..."

"The old boat-house."

His eyes widened. I smiled, smugly. "Look," I said, "you don't have to commit to anything right now, but come and see it. Talk to your Dad."

He nodded slowly.

"Try and cook your dream meal in that kitchen," I said, nodding behind him, "and then come and see me."

The smile tugged at his lips again. He resisted it. "Maybe," he said, eventually.

I sighed. "That is good enough for me," I said, and I finished off the cake.

He turned his tea around a few more times. Then, he frowned a little. "You know," he began, awkward and stilting, "that you don't have to apologise to everyone who lost someone in the accident."

Where before it had been hot, the guilt now creeping up my spine was icy. "Yeah," I said, rubbing my neck, "I do."

At that, the door out to the back of the café opened, and a young man walked in. Dejection marked every line in his face.

"Jim," said Brandon, turning, "this is Elinor Dashwood. Ellis, this is my brother, James."

He paused. He ran a calloused hand through his light brown hair. He looked at me, unflinching, for a few heavy seconds. Then he let out a long breath, and nodded his greeting to me. "Pleased to meet you," he said, low and gruff, and without a certain necessary sense of pleasure.

"You too."

Then he disappeared through another door, and footfalls treading up stairs thudded through the walls.

I leaned back and let out an equally long breath. "So who did he lose?"

Brandon winced.

"You don't have to tell me," I said. "It's fine. Come up to the estate whenever you're free."

He nodded slowly.

"And thanks for the cake and coffee."

His smile pulled quickly, awkward with disuse but sincere, right up to his eyes. "You're welcome," he said, and with that, I gathered my things, and started for the cliff path back to the house.

* * *

The first time I ever laid eyes on Charlotte Marceline Lestrade Jennings, she was eight, and with a name like that, my four year old self was left in awe. She tried to explain to me about how, since her mother was marrying my Uncle Cliff, she had decided to take his name as well. She tried to make me understand that her father, one Marcel Lestrade, was in France and had never met his daughter as he was, in her words, a cad and a bounder. I just nodded along. The heady combination of a girl four years ahead in age and a seeming millennia ahead in knowledge and wisdom, a flouncy dress with flowers and a sash, and the fact that I was about to be a bridesmaid, served to make me nearly burst with excitement. As far as I remember, after Charlotte's mother, Diana, married my godfather and honorary uncle, Cliff, all we did for the rest of the day was eat ice-cream and twirl to make our dresses stick out. I'm sure more happened, but that is all that my excited, four year old mind cared to store away.

* * *

What must have been about the tenth time that I laid eyes on Charlotte Marceline Lestrade Middleton, she offered me hard liquor. Since we arrived in Barton, the week before, she had been busy in London doing nothing that either her mother or step-father could really remember. Then, on the Saturday, she drove back home, dropped in on her maternal grandmother on the way, and arrived, a little harried, in the evening for a family barbecue out on the lawn.

Diana, who had been standing next to me, caught her daughter's hand. "Was she dreadful, darling?" she asked, apologies lacing her face.

Charlotte shrugged and smiled. "No worse than usual. She drilled me about my love life, told me that my career would likely be a failure, and then fell asleep." She turned to me. "Ellis!" she said. "You look like how I feel. Gin?"

"Have you met Tom?"

Charlotte's question, mid-way through our ill-advised third G&Ts, would have seemed innocent enough had it not been for the crucial fact that I had, indeed, met Tom. Mari had complained after my email that night that my powers of description were not up to much. Apparently _Adonis_ was, while evocative, not particularly detailed. A few emails back and forth later, and she began to doubt Tom's status as said Adonis, largely, and massively discriminatorily, because of his red hair. I had to reply that on paper, I would have agreed, but the image of Tom, shirtless, chopping down dead branches with seeming ease was burned into my retinas. Never again would I dismiss a man solely on hair colour. I sent her a list. Her reply started with '_why can't you just use Google like a normal person and find out these people's actual names?' _and then went on to point out that a) Rupert Grint was too young for me, not as attractive in my eyes as Oliver Wood, and definitely not called Randolph Grimes; b) Damien Lewis, aka _that dude from The Forsyte Saga_ was, while great in other things, a little creepy and sad as Soames Forsyte; c) Toby Stephens, aka _that dude from Jane Eyre_ was admittedly hot, but not as great as Mr R as Ciaran Hinds; d) the bros. Pontipee were, indeed, smokin', especially Benjamin. He, allegedly, could take her off to his hillside farmhouse any day, yet e) it was typical that the only person whose actual or character name I knew was Oz from Buffy. But she had to agree. She shot herself further in the foot by adding Eric Stoltz (Meg March was a lucky lady), Robert 'the Sting' Redford, Spencer Tracy and Harpo Marx. I contested this last name. It was a mistake, as her reply only consisted of two words: _David Caruso_. At that point, I turned off my computer. Caruso aside, I felt my Adonis comment was warranted, and my awe of Tom and his perfect chest, allowed.

I looked up at Charlotte. The setting sun, hitting her full in the face, made her squint. Her face was unreadable. That said, the question was not innocent. It just couldn't be. "Yes," I said, eventually. "I met him a few days ago."

She shielded her eyes and looked back at me, unfathomably. "Did he … say anything about …" She trailed off.

"What?"

She fished the slice of lime out her empty glass, and began pulling it to pieces. "I don't know," she said, evasively. "Me?"

I answered her with a look.

"OK," she said. "I need this to stay strictly between us. All right?"

"As long as you're not in some suicide pact or are about to commit espionage."

She grimaced. "Shut up. No. We're …" She took a breath, winced, jumped agitatedly as one of the peacocks cried, glanced around to ensure familial distance then said, "dating?" She sighed, relieved. "We're dating," she said again, this time with more certainty.

"You're not talking about some boy are you?" asked Anastasia, suddenly appearing and slumping next to us.

Charlotte flinched. "Yes," she said, "and it was _private_."

Anastasia shrugged. "Shouldn't have been talking out here then." She turned her steely gaze on me. "You like to be called Ellis?"

I nodded, a little speechless. For a ten year old, she was deeply intimidating.

She nodded back. "That's cool. If anyone called me Anastasia," she said, pronouncing her name, dripping with disdain, "then I'd have them keelhauled."

I silently gave thanks for not having fallen into that trap.

"Nance, do you even know what keelhauling is?" Charlotte asked her sister, contemptuously.

"Yes," she said, tartly, "but since Dad won't buy me a boat bigger than the _Osprey_, there's no point in trying."

"You would try if you could?" I asked, slowly, and, I'll admit, fearfully.

She shrugged with fabulous indifference. "Maybe," she said. She frowned across the garden, bored at our discussion and now much more interested in the next topic. "Is Maggie into girly things?"

"How do you mean?"

She shrugged. "Books about fairies and _Gloria Florida _and …"

"_Hannah Montana_," said Charlotte, exasperated.

"Whatever. Ponies and wishing wells and make-overs and…"

"Good grief, no," I said, breaking in. "She'd sooner die."

The first expression that I wouldn't label _supercilious_ graced her face. "Really?" she asked. "Interesting." With that, she got up and sauntered over the lawn to where Mags was sitting, not concealing very well her expression of pure boredom.

"Oh, poor Maggie," breathed Charlotte. "I hope she'll be all right."

"She'll be fine," I said. "She models herself on Nancy Blackett."

Charlotte grinned, and shook her head. "So does Nance, hence the name change. That, and Anastasia was the least appropriate name ever for her. That, or Grace."

As we watched, Maggie leaped up and accompanied Nancy off up to the house.

"Where are they going?" asked Diana, walking over, a nervous expression on her face.

"It would appear," said Charlotte, standing up, "that Maggie can hold her own."

Diana raised her eyebrows. "Against Nancy? Well," she said, stunned, "there's a first time for everything."

* * *

The first time that Mari ever laid eyes on Brandon Moreland, I rather suspect that she thought he was mad. She had arrived several days after Diana's barbecue and, unperturbed by my interment in work, the fact that our flat didn't have enough bedrooms for all of us, and the general state of confusion the family had fallen into, she had dived right in. It had helped that she knew us embarrassingly well. Before leaving Oxford she had phoned and left a message, along the lines that it should take something like four hours, maybe a bit more when taking into account the fact that she assumed there would be nothing to eat in the house besides frozen pizza, and therefore would need to stop at Tesco on the way. After all, she had reasoned, not all of us could stay as skinny as a stick insect while eating such massive amounts of mystery ingredients, most of which, probably, were cheese. Therefore upon arriving, she not only had a car full of essays and suitcases and posters of Kenneth Branagh, but several bags of food, magically, and somewhat mysteriously, not already formed into meals. I had hugged her, shown her the precarious cabin bunk in our once master bedroom, now crammed with two lifetimes of stuff, then disappeared back into work. I was aware that, upon re-emerging from the bedroom, semi-unpacked, she had looked at me, rolled her eyes and muttered something about work-a-holics, but then had dutifully set to, chopping vegetables and turning on the oven. I was buried in work and somehow managed to not realise what it was when an, "Ellis?" followed by an incredulous, "are you cooking?" and then heavy footfalls up the stairs sounded through the flat. It was only really as Brandon appeared in our open doorway, intent on mocking me and my cooking skills (he did, after all, catch me eating a Hobnob and peanut butter a few days previously) that I noticed him, and he noticed Mari. He skidded to a halt.

"You're not…" he began, frowning. "I'm…you're…not…"

Mari looked somewhere between concerned and annoyed. "Elinor?" she asked, not to grab my attention, but to answer his question. For the time being, neither had noticed me sitting on the floor, working on my laptop. "No," she said, with the tone of someone used to answering to _Elinor _her entire long suffering life.

He frowned some more. "I'm sorry, I…" he began. "You're her sister?"

We're totally different. Always have been. I'm stick thin and tall. Scrawny as our Gran used to say. Mari, however, was uncharitably described by said Gran once as Rubinesque. My hair is short, straightish and blonde. Hers is longer, curlier, and darker. And yet, our noses and eyes give us away. Mari, Maggie and I have a matching set. Straight noses, and green eyes, all exactly the same, cookie-cutter versions, and somehow, despite our difference otherwise in colouring, size and shape, everyone sees it, straight off.

"Yes," she said. "Marianne."

He scuffled over in an oddly reluctant way to shake her proffered hand. "Brandon," he said. "Moreland."

Now next to her, he peered suspiciously in the pan. "What _are_ you cooking?" Not exactly a neutral question, it was heavily laced with incredulous concern.

"Chilli in that pan."

I was fascinated. Mari normally made an impressive first impression. An excess of emotion, perhaps, but impressive. Brandon, from our brief acquaintance of two meetings, was already bossy, somewhat grumpy and yet always interesting. Together, however, they cancelled each other out, both stuck, staring and mumbling. The oven timer went off as if on cue, and Mari leaped, relieved, to open it up. "Roasted sweet potato," she said, somewhat self-evidently.

"And you're going to…"

She broke open the packets of cumin and coriander that sat in the pile of things she had bought, and sprinkled them over the sweet potato. "Tortilla chips," she said, waving vaguely at the rest of the things on the counter, warming up to form, "then chilli, then sweet potato, then cheese. All on top of each other. In the oven."

He looked a little bemused.

"Nachos."

He poked at the chilli with the spoon. "There's no meat in here."

I resist the urge to say laugh at his incredulity. That, and Mari's expression. "No," she said. "Ellis is vegetarian…"

"Not for the health benefits, no doubt," he broke in, then immediately looked a little abashed.

"No," she said, smiling, despite clear annoyance at the guy. "I think it started because she was scared that she'd kill herself."

Well, at least they were bonding, even if it was at my expense.

He poked at the chilli again, and had a look at the sweet potato, while murmuring, "aren't we all?"

"All right," I said. "That's enough."

He snapped to, whirled around looked hideously embarrassed. "You've been there…?"

"Yes, the whole time," I said. "It was very interesting."

Mari rolled her eyes, and wrested the spoon from Brandon's fingers.

"Interesting?" he asked, weakly.

"Yes," I said, closing my laptop, and standing up. "It turns out that you two are completely socially inept when combined. " I stretched, clicking out my neck. "So, are you ready to come and have another look at your premises?"

Brandon snapped to. "Yeah, sure," he said and followed me to the door.

"Miz, I'll be back in time for supper," I said.

"Sure, sure…"

"Uh…" said Brandon, pausing in the doorway, "it was…nice to, uh, meet you," he said.

"And you," said Mari. Then she turned back to cooking. Brandon followed me down the stairs and off towards the boathouse. I noticed, even then, that it was a full five minutes before he was really back to full bossy, grumpy, business mode. Only then did he start telling me exactly what he wanted done to the place. As it turned out, we were there for some time.

* * *

The first time I ever laid eyes on Lou Graves was something of a turning point in a grim day. Cliff, who had been extraordinarily busy, finally found time to unearth the spare set of keys to the office and let me in.

"Ruddy Mike," he had muttered, jamming the keys in the old stable door and twisting, viciously. It had screeched. It had crunched. Finally, with an almighty shove against the door, it had swung open enough to let us in. He went in ahead, then, before I could follow, turned back to me, swiftly.

"So, you haven't been able to do much yet," he said, evasively.

"Uh, no." I tried to look past him. It was gloomy and his broad shoulders hid most of my view. All I could really see were the specks of dust, spinning through shafts of light.

"That's my fault," he said. "I've been too busy, and anyway, it's good that you had time to unpack and sort yourself out."

I managed to not scoff too obviously. He had not seen the state of our flat, nor had he seen the vast spread-sheets that I had started building. I nodded instead.

"The thing is," he went on, "Mike left us in a bit of a jam."

"You said."

Cliff looked a little sheepish. "Yes, well, it wasn't just that he left without much warning or that he demanded all that money or anything, so much as he wasn't exactly the tidiest of people. Nor the most organised."

A sense of dread settled in my stomach. Gently, seeing as he was my boss, I pushed him aside. Then I groaned.

"Yes, well…"

Cliff shrugged, helpless, as he surveyed the room beyond with me. The dust was the least of its problems. Papers were piled high. Everywhere. Mike hadn't appeared to believe in filing. Or throwing things away. Boxes were piled high in the corners. The desk had disappeared under a combination of spanners, tack and books. There was an all pervasive smell of decay. Cliff cautiously walked in.

"I don't think that the smell is anything…dead."

I gulped, and followed him. "I'm not so sure."

He rumbled a laugh, and slung an arm around my shoulders. "It'll be fine," he said. "I'll get some of the cleaning staff from the house to come and have a look at it. You'll need to go through those papers, of course. Mike, I'm afraid, didn't believe in computers."

Of course he didn't. I heard myself whimper, faintly. "It'll be fine," I repeated, feeling sick.

He squeezed my shoulder. "Oh," he suddenly said, checking the date in his watch and nearly braining me in the process. "You know what? Lou's due back today." He turned back to me, delightfully oblivious of how close he came to concussing me. "You'll be fine," he said, all confidence. "She's a machine."

"Lou?"

He looked at me as if I were mad. "Your personal assistant. Didn't I tell you?"

"No."

"Oh." He looked completely unfazed. "Well, she's your personal assistant."

Obviously. I swallowed my tongue.

"She's great. She does all the admin around here. The rotas, the pay cheques, official letters. All that jazz."

"Great," I said, fainter still.

He glanced at his watch again. "Right, well, I need to get going. Here are your office keys. Lou's desk is through there somewhere," he said, gesturing vaguely down the building. "I think Tom has stolen a room in here too for the gardeners or something. You'll find out soon enough."

With that he squeezed my shoulder one last reassuring time, then strode off out into the sunshine.

* * *

Three hours of draining, thankless work later, I had the desk clear, and was near crying from frustration. Nothing was clean. The room was set out in the least efficient way possible. It was clear that not only had Mike not used a computer, but he had also managed to work without using a phone. The necessary sockets were all there. It took me half an hour to find them, but I did eventually, behind a filing cabinet. A filing cabinet, that is, full of anything but paper. I had slammed the drawers shut, and collapsed into the ancient swivel chair which immediately collapsed in turn, beneath me. I lay flat on the floor, winded, and contemplated whether anyone would notice if I ran away. It was at that point that the door creaked open wider.

"Ellis?"

I sat up, wincing. A girl, probably younger than Mari, stood there. She not only exuded an elegant charm, but also, and I might add to my great relief, appeared to have an air of extreme competency. I sighed with relief. "You must be Lou."

She grinned, hunkered down next to me, and offered a hand. "Pleased to meet you," she said.

I struggled up with her helping hand, and dusted myself off. "You too," I said, eventually.

She smiled again, then looked around and uttered a low curse.

"I'll say."

She shook her head slowly. "Well, where shall I start?"

I feeling of calm, like balm to a burn, soothed my frazzled nerves. I sighed. Then, with a Herculean effort, we started getting things sorted.

* * *

The first time I ever laid eyes on Ruth Jennings, she appeared in my newly organised office, broad, rosy cheeked, and far too exuberant for your average octogenarian. With Lou off, sorting out her own office, Mari had offered, or rather, demanded to do some general office work for me, desperate for something to do, so she too was there, kneeling on the floor, trying to make head or tail of the unreadable notes that my technology despising predecessor had left.

"Love," Ruth boomed, her presence taking up more room than was available, "is the most wonderful, most marvellous..." She walked in, and lowered herself into a chair. "Men, however," she continued, "are rats. Consider becoming a lesbian."

Charlotte swung into view in the doorway. "Gran!" she said, breathless. "I couldn't find you."

Piercing grey eyes were turned on her. "Well, I was here," she said. "Of course. You only had to look."

She turned back to us. "Charlotte can be so blind. It's why she, too, is still single." She nodded, sagely.

"Thanks," said Charlotte, grim, perching on a low bookcase. "Girls, this is my grandmother, Ruth Jennings. Gran, these are Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. Ellis is Cliff's new Estate Manager."

I leaned over my desk and offered a hand. She shook it, with the air of someone doing a great and noble deed. "Very pleased to meet you, my dears," she said, smiling broadly. "Now, my daughter asked me to come and stay for a few weeks," she said, despite Charlotte's swift snort of derision at the idea of her mother not, in fact, being strong-armed into giving the invitation, "and I thought, while I'm here, I would help out you young ladies. After all, I was happily married for well over fifty years before Arthur gave up."

"He had a heart attack, Gran," said her dutiful grand-daughter. "It wasn't like he deserted the navy."

Ruth waved an impatient hand. "He should have tried harder. Anyway, I married Diana off, I married all of my nieces off, I can certainly manage you three."

I mentally winced. Mari shrunk away behind her piles of dusty papers with a dark expression. Charlotte, too, grimaced. "That's really not necessary, Gran," she said. "We'll do well enough on our own."

Ruth turned the steely gaze back on her grand-daughter. "You, young lady, are not as young as you once were. If I'm not mistaken, you turned thirty this year, didn't you, or was that large cheque that I wrote out a little premature?"

Charlotte deeply pained expression deepened.

"After all," continued Ruth, "by the time I was your age, I had born all four of my children. You don't even have a job, let alone a husband!"

As Ruth turned back to face me, a self-satisfied expression on her face, Charlotte made a face at her.

"Anyway," she continued, "I hear that you are both single," she said, smiling encouragingly, "but that you, Ellie, might be pining away for some man beginning with an _E_. Is that right?"

I muscled past the wrenching feeling of my intestines exploding and the blinding need to kill Maggie, and instead focussed on Charlotte's expression. "It's _Ellis_, Gran," she said, "not Ellie."

Ruth looked a little surprised. "Ellis?" she repeated. "Like Ellis Peters? The man?"

"Ellis Peters was a woman, actually," said Mari, emerging from behind the piles of paper. "Her real name was Edith Pargeter."

Charlotte silently punched the air. Ruth, however, was not dissuaded. "Well, every day's a school day, and they do say that school days are the best of your life, therefore, I am still in my prime." She looked pleased and, though I wouldn't dare say it in front of Charlotte, bristling with life. "Are you named after, what was it, Edith Pargeter?" she asked, with a nod at Mari.

"No," I said. "Emily Bronte. Ellis was _her_ pseudo name."

"Ah," she said, wisely, "and she died child-less, racked by TB. I do hope that you're not aspiring to be like her."

As Charlotte said later, there's no one like Ruth to drive home the joys and wonders of life. As it was, I paused, unsure what to say, and, it turned out, I didn't need to. Ruth continued, undiverted.

"So," she said. "Your heart was left back in Yorkshire?"

While silent, my inner monologue would have made a pirate blush. I shot Charlotte a look. She smiled back, blithely. Had Ruth not been sitting in front of me, still nodding encouragingly, I would have shot her a much dirtier look.

"Ah," I started, succinctly. "There's nothing to tell," I said. "I didn't risk leaving it back there. It might have been turned into an amusement park."

A frown fluttered between Ruth's eyebrows. "I'm afraid I don't quite..."

"The metaphor got a little tortured," put in Mari. "In short, Ellis's heart is intact if, perhaps, whether bruised on not." She raised her eyebrows at me.

"Yes," I said. "I'm not pining away. Really."

Charlotte smiled. "Good."

"Yes," said Ruth. "It'll be much easier to find you someone in that case. Men don't like it when their wives are mooning over other men."

"How backward of them," said Charlotte, briskly. "Come on Gran. Mum was making a pot of tea. Let's leave Ellis and Mari in peace."

Ruth got up slowly, betraying her age. "Very well," she said. "Don't think that I'll forget about this though. Women need a project. The moulding of a man is the very thing."

With that, she left the office. As soon as she was gone, the air returned, rushing into the vacuum of disbelief and awkward questions. Mari looked across at me.

"Holy..."

"Yeah."

Maggie appeared in the doorway. "Did you just meet Ruth? Isn't she great?"

I narrowed my eyes at her. "What did you tell her, Mags? She appeared to be under some illusions about my love life."

She shrugged. "Nothing much. Just that we were looking forward to a friend coming to see us soon, and that he really liked you..."

"Maggie!" I groaned.

"Well it's true," she said, "and he wasn't just your friend, you know. Even if you don't miss him, I do." She frowned. "Anyway," she said, "you don't have to worry. "I didn't say who. Just his initials."

Mari rolled her eyes. "What a relief. That'll put her off from meddling in Ellis's life."

Maggie scowled at her. "I liked her. She said how she felt. It's a lot more than anyone else has done around here for a while." With that, she whirled around and walked away.

"She misses him?" said Mari, stacking the last of the papers.

I sighed. "It's all she talked about for the first few days here. After several weeks of not hearing a thing from him, she's starting to mention him less."

"Why _hasn't_ he made contact?" she asked, frowning. "He must have known how much he meant to Mags, not to mention, you."

I hoped that no one would ask. I hoped that they'd think Ed was just bad at remembering to email. Shocking at remembering to pick up the phone. Never in the neighbourhood. The last thing that anyone needed to know was that he probably wasn't phoning because I had all but molested him in our final minutes of friendship. Except, I thought, I probably should have told Mari. I had toyed with it. I had also repeatedly dismissed it. She would have personally forced me into her car, driven me an undetermined number of hours, then thrust me into a locked room with Ed to sort things out. Never one to mask her feelings, and probably secretly in awe of Ruth, she would have forced a discussion. A discussion which, right now, I couldn't face.

"I'm not sure," I lied, smoothly. "I hope he does soon, at least for Maggie's sake." I hoped that my benevolence would somehow balance out by reticence. I'm not sure it worked.

Mari nodded, slowly. All this talk of my disastrous love-life made me realise that I hadn't consoled her, weeping down the phone to me, for a while. The last time was almost a year ago, with Steve, the rat, who had been 'edgy' and 'fascinating', yet also, in truth, constantly high. He had run off with a class-mate and had left her a broken shell of the girl she once was. Angrier, wiser, and more determined to find her Heathcliff. I did warn her at that point that, while once my ideal man, a modern Heathcliff would probably be very well described as 'edgy' and 'fascinating' and, in all likelihood, also be permanently stoned, and that maybe Gilbert Blythe would be a better goal. She had sighed and called me an old lady, so I gave up and advised a concentrated dose of Pacey Witter's face. What, after all, cannot be solved with the _Dawson's Creek _box-set?

"What about you?" I asked. "I haven't heard you talking about any guys recently."

She shrugged. "There's not much to tell. There's certainly no one around here."

"No one at all?" I asked, fishing somewhat, although it did occur to me that accidentally letting her fall in love with Tom would be awkward, what with the secrets I had.

She wrinkled her nose. "I don't think so." She narrowed her eyes. "You're not thinking of Brandon, are you?"

I hadn't been. I had somewhat unconsciously dismissed him from my mental list of potential brothers-in-law, largely from their awkward first meeting, followed by a stilted second meeting last night. Now, however, I thought about it again. "No," I said, slowly. "He's a great guy though."

She made a face. "Yeah, I'm sure. It's just..."

"What?"

"He's old!"

I laughed. I couldn't help it. "He's only thirty-two, Miz."

She raised her eyebrows. "That's eleven years on me. He was going to high school before I could walk."

"OK," I said, "and Kenneth Branagh is really in his first flush of youth."

She grinned. "When it comes to Branagh, all bets are off."

I shook my head, slowly.

"Talking of Ken," she said, "how would you feel about a second-hand-bookshop?"

"Talking of Ken?"

She shrugged. "Kenneth Branagh, Shakespeare, books generally. Keep up, El."

"OK. Continue."

She grinned again. "You said something about maybe running a bookshop, and since you would probably sell first edition Penguin classics for fifty pence, you need someone who knows a little more about it all."

"Like you?"

Her smiles dropped a little. "I want to do something here. I want to be useful, and this is all I know."

Dread began to creep. "I don't know, Mari," I began.

"I'm not talking about some ratty, corner-of-a-garage thing," she said, fired up. "We're talking good books, and well planned spaces. Catalogues and cabinets and armchairs and maybe coffee."

I leaned back, precariously. "You've been thinking about this?"

She scoffed. "Of course. I can do this, and I'd be good at it."

My back was getting stiff, and my neck was seizing. I stood up. "I'll think about it."

"Think about it now," she said, exasperated. "I can do it. I _can_. Let me do something here or I'll go mad."

From experience, that was not to be encouraged.

"Please, Ellis," she said, and she stood up as well. "Give me a chance."

Something about her expression and earnestness chased away the creeping dread. Blind hope replaced it with a side order of sudden gnawing hunger. It's the problem of simultaneously often forgetting to eat, yet knowing that Cliff had yet again disappeared into the kitchens this morning to try out a new cake recipe that he'd found. "OK," I said. "Let's go and talk to Cliff."

Had we stayed five more minutes, we might have caught the postman. As it was, the parcel lay on my desk for several hours longer than needed. It was addressed to _Miss Margaret Dashwood, c/o Estate Manager, Barton Park_. All of that formality aside, I would have recognised it in an instant. Ed's handwriting, while horribly bad, was also horribly distinctive.

* * *

**Thank you for all the comments. I do appreciate them. As ever, _Sense and Sensibility_, the entire _Harry Potter_ franchise, _The Forsyte Saga, Jane Eyre, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Little Women, The Sting, _Spencer Tracy, Harpo Marx, David Caruso**, **_Hannah Montana, _the _Swallows and Amazons_ series, Kenneth Branagh**, **Ellis Peters, Emily Bronte and _Dawson's Creek_ are all not mine. I am, however, ever indebted to them. Especially the smokin' bros. Pontipee. **


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

Maggie turned the book over in her hands. She was attempting to temper her pleasure at Ed's gift with the derisive scorn of Nancy.

"A book about _magic_?" she scoffed.

"Yes, it's never been done before. Except, of course," said Mari, deadpan, "_Harry Jackson and the Vampire Slayer._"

Nancy smiled a little, benevolently. "Well," she sighed, "if it's as boring as all the others, it can be the first book in the second-hand-bookshop.

Mari smiled, partly at Nancy but, I suspected, partly at the remembrance of Cliff's exuberant answer.

"Yes," he had said. "Yes, twenty times over. If anyone can make it work, Marianne, I think it'll be you." He had shovelled more cake onto our plates, and poured more coffee. "Brilliant," he had said. "Abso-ruddy-lutely brilliant. I'll look out some old things from the library."

Ten minutes later, coffee still in hand, he had dragged us out to the old stable yard. Our flat spread across the top of one side, and my office was beneath it, surrounded by the old tack room, now Lou's office, store rooms, and what was supposed to be a staff room, although Tom had long ago appropriated it for himself and his team of volunteers. The other side, however, was empty, save for the old stable partitions and inevitable junk that accumulates after years. "Here," he had said, waving his hands expansively with no thought for the coffee held in one of the hands. "Won't it be wonderful?"

Mari had, I suspect, been hoping, at most, for a small room, maybe two, whose walls could be lined with books, a small counter installed in the corner, and a few armchairs placed around. At the sheer square-footage before us, she blanched a little.

"Of course," he had said, "we'll have to think about heating, right? Books don't like the cold and damp."

He had wandered around, muttering about wood burning stoves, knocking down walls, listing be blown, and had eventually turned back to us. "So," he had asked. "What do you think?"

Mari, normally one to speak quickly, gulped. "All of it?" she asked. "All of this space?"

He had shrugged. "It's just going to waste otherwise. You want this to be a great second-hand-bookshop, don't you?" He had smiled, genially, then strolled off amongst the slightly horsey-smelling rooms.

She had turned to me. "You think I can do it?" Wide eyed, she stared at me, suddenly looking very young.

"Yes," I said, feeling much less certainty than I showed.

She nodded slowly. Then she smiled. "Yes," she repeated. "I'll need help."

"We'll find help. I think it could be great."

She smiled some more. "Yeah." Her smile broke through, properly. "Abso-ruddy-lutely." Then she hugged me fiercely, and leaped off after Cliff, talking books nineteen to the dozen.

* * *

After tea at the great house, and Nancy's inspection of Maggie's book, Mari and I returned to the stables. We wandered the length and breadth of the space, several small rooms along with the expansive middle section. Mari gulped again at the sheer space, but she looked exuberant. The last few months had ironed out her emotions, and, all credit to her, she had tried to be steadier, to help out and carry some of the burden. It had, however, been a little unnerving. It might have been easier, but who wants a Disney princess hanging around, when you used to have a Fraggle? The Fraggle, I'm glad to say, was returning. She swooped on me, hugging me hard. "Just think," she said. "We could do poetry readings in here. Small concerts and book launches, and film screenings..."

I was beginning to wonder where the books would fit, but I left her to her imaginings for the moment. Back in exuberant mode of yore, the call of 'you can be so closed minded Ellis' was heard often. I had no wish to invoke it again.

"Maybe we could put a piano in here," she mused, wandering off. "People could play, browse the books, drink coffee..."

"You're making me redundant?" asked Brandon, leaning in the doorway.

Mari's head snapped up. "Oh... I..."

"No," I said, decisively. "_If _ there's coffee, it'll be of the instant variety."

"Ellis!" protested Mari.

"Good," said Brandon. He flashed a wary smile at Mari. "No offence," he said. "I'll bake you cakes for..." he trailed off and surveyed the barn-like empty space. "Whatever you're going to put in here," he finished.

She smiled, just a little. "Thank you," she said, "and it's going to be books."

"And maybe a piano?" he asked.

She shrugged, a little easier. "Maybe. I'm not sure where from. I like the idea of people trying out a number or two though."

Brandon nodded thoughtfully. "Second hand?"

"Piano?"

He laughed, maybe for the first time that I had ever noticed. "Books," he said, "although probably yes with the piano as well."

She smiled again, easier by the second. She turned to me. "What do you think?"

I held out my hands. "It's your venture Miz," I said. "Your decisions." I swallowed the very hard lump of fear that she'd flake out on me. "I trust you," I said, with more will than belief.

I was glad I said it. She smiled even more. Brandon, in response, smiled as well. My brain started whirring. She had said that he was too old, and their first few meetings were awkward, to say the least, but there was something there.

"Ready for a meeting?" asked Brandon, breaking my thoughts.

"Right, yes..." I pulled myself together, willing myself not to blush at the thought that he might have realised I was thinking of him. "Mari, I'll see you later."

She waved a hand vaguely, and wandered off again. I turned to Brandon to see him watching Mari, a small smile on his face. He snapped back, reddened guiltily, then wheeled out of the room. Yes. Something was afoot.

* * *

The next day, a Trojan Horse of swirling emotions and unspoken feelings arrived on our doorstep.

"I was just passing through," said Brandon, "but I thought you maybe could do with this now."

"What is it?"

He smiled a little at me, mysteriously, disappeared into the open back of his beaten up car, then re-emerged with two carrier bags stuffed full of books, which he thrust into my hands, and a digital piano, which he hefted into his arms. "Where shall I take it?" he asked, a little breathless.

I was speechless. Truly gob-smacked. I pulled myself together. "Uh..." I began, "I guess up to the flat..." He nodded, and walked off, through the door and up our stairs. I followed, lamely. I found him in the corner of the living room, setting the digital piano on its stand.

"One of the bags has its cables," he said. "I hope the books are all OK. They were just gleaned from my shelves. A few things I no longer needed." He stopped, and smiled a little. "You all right?"

Still a little shell-shocked I nodded. "Yeah," I said, slowly. "I'm in a weird mood. It's fine. Thank you," I managed. "Mari'll be thrilled."

He smiled a little more. "OK," he said. "Well I've got to be going. Tell her that she can get rid of anything that she doesn't want, and that includes the piano. It was just gathering dust in my parents' attic."

"OK," I said, lamely.

He smiled again. "See you later," he said, and he disappeared down the stairs.

I stared at the piano for the longest time. Then I gave up. I went downstairs and immersed myself in estate plans and notes left by my predecessors, gloriously able, for a few hours, to forget what was going on, and how much I wanted Ed to be trying to win me over, rather than just sending my sister books. It worked. Almost.

* * *

The weather had been waiting. The night that the wood burning stove was installed and first fired up was stormy, the wind swirling about our courtyard, first balmy, and then with a damp, chilly edge. Leaving the old stable, parting ways after christening the stove with beers all round, I could smell the imminent change of season: dead leaves, cold nights and bonfires were just waiting beyond the horizon. That night the winds whipped up higher, and brought with them an almighty thunder storm. The next morning as I stepped into the bathroom, my first thought was not, as usual, to look out on the deer below in the park grounds (thankfully, for the moment, not my concern). Normally I spent an inordinate amount of time watching them leap through the mist. This morning, however, I stepped, bare-foot, onto the slate floor, swore gently, then retreated to unearth my slippers. Reaching the bathroom again, with a brief, cursory glance out of the window, I immediately turned to the ancient and slightly dodgy-looking wall heater. After a few attempts at various combinations of switches, in and out of the bathroom, it chugged into life, bringing the smell of burnt dust with it. Standing underneath it for a second, I closed my eyes. Blissfully warm air swamped me. I leaned against the wall and sighed. Then, regretfully, I leaned over, started the shower going, left it the necessary two minutes to warm up, then shucked my clothes and climbed in.

The change in weather brought several other changes along with it. First, Mari found herself forced by the chilly conditions and distinct lack of heating out of our flat but was also squeezed out of my too-full office, yet was desperately trying to work out plans for the book-shop. Brandon, on the other hand, profited from a workspace full of eager craftsmen, not to mention newly repaired, large, south-facing windows. It was cosy up at the boat-house, the sun pouring through the windows and gleaming off every new chrome appliance and piece of polished wood. Soon, Mari was to be found there, squirrelled away in a warm corner, furiously typing on her laptop, making notes in a bulging notebook. Lou and I got into the habit of joining them for lunch. Whether he was working there, or down in the town, Brandon likewise got into a habit of bringing soup and bread up for all the workers and planners alike. Over dusty trestle tables and talk of paint colours and fridge sizes he would pass round the steaming bowls and inevitably end up sitting next to Mari. Their quiet companionship, talk of Bach minuets and goats cheese lasagne, shot splinters of jealousy into my heart, but I knew that, in the long run, it was solving bigger problems, also known as my sanity.

Ten weeks earlier, when Mari had told me that she was trying to change, I told her not to change _too_ much. Lying in our shared bedroom in Barton, dodgy cabin bunks ominously creaking, all of our possessions still piled high in dusty boxes due to a combination of no time and no space, I wished that I hadn't said it. I wished, somewhat uncharitably, although it was one o'clock in the morning that she had changed altogether. For three weeks solid, ever since arriving in Barton, and, more importantly, moving into my bedroom with me, Mari had cried herself to sleep. The first night I crawled out of my bed, navigated my way across the perils of badly stacked boxes of fragile items, and got into hers. I may have made her cry with ghost stories when she was little, but I also hugged her when she had nightmares. I was a good sister. Except after a week of it, I became impatient. I whispered to her, asking if she was all right. She had sniffed in return. I took it as a yes. I pretended to sleep. The sleep pretence carried on, despite the fact that she, too, doggedly kept on weeping, nightly. It was exhausting. She would cry herself to sleep, then finally, when all was silent, I'd be left lying in the dark, wide awake, worrying that I'd made the wrong decision coming here, sending my emotional sister on a downward spiral into something of which the Brontë's would have approved. That, or an early grave. Except since starting work on the book-shop, and spending quiet hours chatting with Brandon, change number two had happened: the weeping had lessened. Not, I hasten to add, altogether, but it was better. Also, my sleeping had not improved as, just as Mari started to seemingly become happier, I had a call from John.

"_Ellis!"_ he exclaimed, as if greeting me back from war. _"We're coming down to see Fifi's parents, and thought we might drop in!"_

"Did you?" I said, trying not to sound horrified. The possibility had been hanging over us ever since telling them that we were moving. Fi's parents were only fifty miles along the coast, albeit on little roads that would make it last more like an hour and a half. While John would have been all right, we were dreading even the thought of Fi invading our new life.

"_Well, I might not be around," _he said. _"I've got some work to be doing, but Fifi and Xander of course, will both be around. It's her parents' ruby anniversary and the whole family is coming for the week."_

"The whole family?" I repeated, knowing very well the next idea that would pop, deviously, into my brother's mind.

"_Maybe they could come and see you too?"_ he suggested. I gulped. We only really met Fi's family at her wedding to John. Ever since we assiduously avoided them. Had we known about Ed, we might not have tried so hard, but last time I met them, her mother was hard and cold, and her father dispirited and translucent, largely after a life of sniping from his wife and eldest daughter. Fi's sister, Izzy was at least vapid rather than mean, and looking for fun rather than trouble. Robbie, too, was less of a worry, although at John and Fi's wedding his fondness for champagne had combined with his much inflated ego to produce a dangerous assurance of his charms. Mari and I were not so charmed. We had spent the evening alternately hiding behind broad relatives and leafy pot-plants.

"_What time do you have off?"_ he asked. _"Maybe they could come on your day off?"_

"I'm pretty much working all the time right now," I said, maybe a little too quickly.

"_Maybe they could just drop in then,"_ he said, _"on the off chance of its being convenient."_

I swallowed the need to tell him what I'd drop him in, and murmured my agreement.

After a further exchange of empty pleasantries, we had rung off and I was left feeling wrung out. I didn't sleep at all that night, and for once, I couldn't blame Mari. She had tossed and turned for a while, but no weeping had come. I had offered a silent prayer of thanks, and then lain awake, staring at the sloping ceiling above me, mulling over the ideas of Fi visiting, judging everything here, smiling insipidly, combined with her family and their grating irritation, not to mention the slightest possibility that Ed, too, would be going to his parents and may, just possibly, drop in. By the time that dawn arrived, I was exhausted from trying to sleep, so I got up. After a few hours walking about the estate and along the cliff paths, I found myself at the boat-house, which, while still locked at the ridiculously early hour that it was, did afford a balcony across the back with newly acquired patio furniture on it. I curled up in a wide wooden chair, marvelled at the choice that Brandon had made, and watched as the rising sun sent slivers of light skipping across the waters below. It must have sent me into a semi-trance, as I didn't see or hear Brandon until he was standing right over me.

"Ellis?" he asked. "Are all right?"

I shook myself and came too. "Fine," I said as untruthfully as ever.

He raised an eyebrow. More than anyone else, he was starting to get the measure of me. "OK," he said, and unlocked the wide wood and glass doors behind him. After a few minutes of scuffling and clanking, he reappeared with two steaming mugs of coffee. "You looked like you could do with it."

It was super strong, and scaldingly hot, yet another sign of how well he knew me. I sighed into it, and enjoyed the buffet of steam that rose around my face.

Brandon eyed me over his own mug. "So?" he asked. "What happened to you?"

I made a face at him. "It's nothing. I'm just tired."

He nodded, propping his feet up on the balcony rail. "Riiiight," he said, drawling it out.

Indignant, I said, "I thought we had an agreement! You don't ask about how I actually feel about things, and I don't ask about Marianne."

He winced, and closed one eye.

"It was unspoken," I said, "but I thought it was there."

"It was," he said, gruffly.

"Too late. You broke it. What's going on?"

He blew into his coffee.

"Fine," I said, potentially cracking up a little. "I'll go first. I'm still unsure as to whether this whole plan of coming here isn't the worst thing I could have done for my family. Also, my half-brother's odious wife and her horrible family are due to drop in at some unspecified time, so I can't run or hide. Added to that," I said, "her other brother who is neither odious nor horrible, may also be dropping in, any day now."

Brandon surfaced from his coffee. "Is this the guy who begins with an E?"

I groaned. "You shouldn't listen to anything Maggie tells you unless it's about blazing or rowing or bugs…"

"It was Ruth."

I groaned again. "She got her info from Maggie."

"So it's not him? Or his name doesn't begin with an E?"

I grimaced.

"Or is she, perhaps, correct?"

"I'm going to kill her."

He smiled. Then he sighed. "He might be dropping in, but you don't know when?"

"Right," I said, "except I could just message him on facebook and ask…"

"OK?"

"But we haven't talked at all in three weeks and that was after something … awkward, shall we say."

He raised his eyebrows.

"You don't need to know," I said, reading his unspoken question.

He grinned into his coffee.

"So, your turn."

The grin disappeared.

"What's going on with you and Mari?"

He winced. "I think," he said, slowly, "that there is a strong possibility that I am possibly falling in love with her."

I nearly fell off my chair. I thought he liked her. In fact, I would have staked my life on it. Or at least, my _Buffy_ box-set. But that much? "Wow," I said, unable to say anything else.

"Yeah," he said. "And I'm eleven years older than her."

"Right. You were starting high school when she was born. You turned twenty-one before she even got to high school."

He gave me a long and withering look. "This," he said, "is not helping."

"Sorry. So. You were saying?"

"I'm old."

"Yes."

"And we're very different."

"Yes," I said again.

He brooded over his coffee. "She should be with someone nearer her age. Nearer her temperament."

"No," I said. "She should be with someone who loves her."

He bit his lip, and sighed. "Yes," he said, slowly. "Well. We both have a lot to think about."

"Yes."

He nodded. Then he stood up. "You want breakfast?"

"Yes."

* * *

Change number three happened, somewhat as a result of change number one. The flat soon went from delightfully cool on a summers evening to surprisingly chilly first thing in the morning, right round to we-might-as-well-be-outside stark freezing. Mum, who in the past had been almost Marianne-like in her forceful melodrama, had been gently prodding me to get something done about it. I, only in the flat for sleeping and showering, thought that the bathroom wall heater and a hot water bottle should probably suffice. Maggie stoically put on extra socks and jumpers, found her copy of _Winter Holiday_ and consulted to see what Nancy Blackett would do. The fact that Mags was referring to a book about January in the Lake District for advice on her flat, in October, in Devon, was perhaps, in hindsight, not a good sign. The sign that I needed, however, came when, having been quizzed by Mari as to whether I even knew where the heating controls were, I shrugged, said I didn't actually know where the heaters were, let alone their controls, and she swore at me, told me she hated living in Barton and that it was a ridiculous scheme to come here, then stormed out. I sat in silence for a few minutes. Old Mari was certainly back. Also, for all of Brandon's good work, she was clearly still not entirely happy. I sighed, pulled on a body warmer, stood up and went out to look for Tom. Of all the people on the estate, he was the most likely to have a clue about the plumbing of my flat.

Tom, for all his uncontrollable raging hotness, was starting, however, to get a little riled, and I couldn't entirely blame him. He had looked wild-eyed and exhausted when I had cornered him the day after Mari yelled at me, and when I asked if we could meet about garden plans, he had all but thrown his shovel in my face and said 'you do the plans'. He had, however, sworn, quite fruitilly. "I'm sorry Ellis," he had said, later that afternoon, when he stopped by the office. "I've just got so much to do, and even with the few guys who volunteer, there's too much." He had slumped in the chair opposite mine, looking despondent. "Really," he said, "I'm no good at garden design anyway. I love the maintenance of it, but the design is a little beyond me."

"I was going to ask about plumbing in the flat as well ..." I said, carefully.

His expression said it all.

"OK," I said, "I'll find someone else."

He had leaned forward. "I'm afraid that I'm not much good at that either," he said, a little ruefully. "I'm grand when it comes to chopping the trees down, pruning the roses, tending the vegetables, but if you want me to plan intricate hedge-work or sculpt squirrels out of my oak-off-cuts, let alone soldering and whatever else ..."

"Fine," I said. "I'll find someone else. Maybe I can ask Lou about it." I did not feel as certain as I sounded. Yet again. "I'm sure..." I qualified.

"I know people," he said. "Talk to Brandon. He'll line them up for you."

I sighed. "He's away again. Just for a few days, but I really need to get going … you know?"

He had sighed, stood up, then stretched. "Meet me at the Delaford Kitchen, tomorrow, elevenish."

I had frowned a little. "You know, Brandon's not ..."

"No," he said with a smile, "he's not there, but a potential garden designer and talented handy-man both are."

"Are you joking?"

He had smiled, then walked out. "I'll see you there. You're buying the cake," he said, then disappeared.

* * *

I made some pretty hard decisions. Leaving my job. Moving to Barton where, surely, they all secretly hated us. Agreeing to the ridiculous plan to get the Barton Park estate up and running in less than a year. Not quizzing Mari about Brandon, however much I wanted to. They were all hard. They were all soul searching, heart squeezing moments. Well, Mari and Brandon wasn't, so much as it was necessary for them to not both walk out on me, disgusted. Standing in front of the cake selection at the Delaford Kitchen, however, was harder than all of the above. Combined.

Tom hadn't yet arrived, but there was so much cake, and from our brief chats over the biscuit tin in the kitchen I knew that he wasn't fussy as long as it was, indeed, cake, so I began to peruse. The girl behind the counter, no doubt filling in for Brandon, smiled a little.

"Can't decide?" she asked.

"I don't know what most of them are, and I still want them all."

She looked at them too. "Fair enough," she said. "I could craft you some kind of tasting platter?"

I nearly fell off the bar stool. "I … uh … that would seem like a bad plan."

She laughed. "OK, in that case, I would recommend the lemon oat bar."

Fudgy and flapjackish, a crust of sugar and lemon zest on top, I nearly wept. "This," I said, between forkfuls, in an attempt to look refined, rather than jamming it at once in my mouth, "is the best thing, _ever."_

She nodded. "I'll tell my brother. He'll be thrilled."

Wait. "You're Brandon's sister?"

She nodded again, and held out a hand. "Cate Moreland."

I shook it, despite the cake/sugar high that I was riding. "Ellis Dashwood."

She smiled. "I was sorry about your father and … everything."

"Thank you," I said. "Yours as well. How's he doing?"

"Better," she said. "Much better since Brandon came home and stopped him worrying about the business. Of course, now I have to be in here when he's out." She grimaced.

"You don't enjoy it?"

She shrugged. "It's not quite how I imagined my life. I kind of assumed that I would have found a job, met a guy, moved away. You know. That, and, of course, by now Captain Von Trapp and I should have fled the Nazis..."

"Right," I said cautiously, just in case she really thought … well. " You must be behind schedule?"

She grinned. "Yep. It's all right. I've got plenty of time to marry royalty, cure cancer and solve a great crime."

I smiled, inadvertently. "Life goals?"

"Some," she said, digging in her pocket, getting out pepper spray, three acorn cups, a tiny novelty magnifying glass, and, finally, a worn piece of paper. "Here," she said, passing it to me. "Forgive the handwriting. I was thirteen."

The faded, creased paper was criss-crossed with a self-conscious hand, loopy in the extreme. _My dreams and goals_ it said across the top, followed by a numbered list.

"One," I read out. "Learn to do the perfect cartwheel." I looked up. "Fair enough," I said. "I always wanted to be that girl."

She grinned. "I learned. See, it's ticked."

Sure enough, a few of the less ambitious goals were checked, amongst them, _Become Head Girl, Learn to whistle in an acorn cup, Work out what happened in 'The Big Sleep' _and _Meet James Marsters._"

"You met James Marsters? He's one of the few actors whom I could pick out of a crowd."

"Yep," she said, a little dismissively. "But did you see, I can whistle in an acorn cup too?"

Hence the acorns. There's something very charming about someone who finds meeting someone with possibly the biggest, most voracious fan following ever (pre-Pattinson, that is) less interesting than whistling in an acorn cup. I warmed to her.

"Also," she pointed out, leaning over, "I proved that _The Blair Witch Project_ was, in fact, a hoax."

"You were thirteen and you were watching...?"

She shrugged. "Jim is five years older than me, Brandon, nine." Then, she grinned. "They were never very responsible baby-sitters."

"I can imagine."

At that the bell over the door of the cafe jangled. Seconds later, Tom appeared at my elbow.

"Thanks for waiting before tucking in," he said, grinning.

"I'll buy more."

He shook his head slowly, then sat down next to me at the counter. "Coffee please, Cate," he said, "and keep them coming." He glanced between us. "I see you've met."

"Yes Thomas," said Cate, slowly. "That's what we doing in these kinds of professions. Rather than squirrelling ourselves away in forests, chopping down trees, we talk to people and make pleasant conversation."

Tom gave her a withering look. "I should have dealt with you long ago. Brandon said you were trouble, and I just didn't believe him."

She smiled. "I was charming," she said. "Sweet and lovely with long plaits and a pinafore."

"And a devious nature."

"When did you ever wear a pinafore?" asked James, appearing out of the kitchen with a cup of coffee.

"Often."

I laughed at Cate's prim reply. She grinned right back.

"Jim, great," said Tom, "I wanted to talk to you both. You've met Ellis?"

James looked up at me, slowly. "Yes," he said. "Uh … sorry I was so ..." He shrugged.

"It's fine."

He smiled a little, briefly.

"Look," said Tom, accepting a coffee from Cate, "here's the thing. We're in dire need of a half decent landscape designer happy to work for a pittance, and a willing and able handyman."

Cate whirled around from where she had been wrestling with the coffee machine. "Really?" she asked. "That would be brilliant."

"I don't know about the pittance thing, Tom," I said.

Cate leaned across the counter. "In all honesty Ellis, I'd do it for nothing just for the experience."

"Brilliant," repeated Tom, rubbing his hands.

"We'll pay you," I insisted, quickly. "I can't promise how much or how long, but if you can help us at all, I'll fight for some kind of money. Lou's a genius when it comes to these things."

Cate's smile lit up the room. "Brilliant," she said again. "Having graduated, jobs somewhat dried up for a while, and then Dad needed help down here, but ..." She smiled even more. "Brilliant."

Tom grinned back at her, all happiness, with a dash of patronising older-brotherly. He raised his eyebrows at James. "So?" he said. "What do you think?"

He rubbed his hands together, slowly, rough skin and calloused scars scuffing against each other. "Yeah," he said, "maybe. I certainly could do with the money." He smiled a little, ruefully.

Cate raised her eyebrows. "Yeah, because your savings account is in a really bad way."

He made a face at her. "I need that for start-up costs again. And transport. And a pension."

Cate made the same face back at him

Tom, however, ignored the both. "I could really do with your help, Jim," he said. "Ellis wants all sorts of things doing."

James turned with a half-smile. "You've clearly never seen anything that Tom's made."

I shrugged. "The gardens were so well maintained. I just assumed that he was multi-skilled."

"Oh, he's multi-skilled all right," said Cate, smirking. "Just ask Lotso."

Tom turned to her, his expression grim. "First," he said, "you don't know what you're talking about."

Cate laughed derisively.

"Fine," he said. "Then second, you weren't supposed to tell anyone else, and third…"

James looked bemused. "I have no idea what you're talking about, still."

"And I already knew."

"What?"

Tom whirled around, nearly falling off his bar stool. I smiled right back at him. "Yes."

He shook his head, slowly.

"And third?" asked Cate.

"Third," said Tom weakly, "you both know how freaked out I was about that bear, and yet you both insist on shortening Charlotte to … that name." He shuddered.

"Wait, _you and Charlotte_?" said James.

Tom closed his eyes and rested his palms against them, groaning all the while. "This isn't happening to me."

"How did I miss that?" asked James.

"You had other things going on," said Tom, lowering his head to rest it on the counter. He slapped the wooden surface with both hands. "This is so not happening to me."

"I think," said Cate, "in fact, it is."

"Why?" he groaned.

"Probably," said Cate, speculatively, "it all started when you shoved your tongue down her throat."

James made a face of distaste. Tom groaned some more. Cate grinned.

"More coffee?" she asked, and refilled my cup.

* * *

"You've known about it?" Tom asked as we walked back up the hill. "You've known all this time?"

I shrugged. "It's not the biggest secret that I'm … that I've ever kept."

He shot me a quick look. Then he shook his head. "I won't ask," he said. "I don't need to know."

"Good."

James smiled slightly. I had talked him into coming back with us to have a look at the heating. I had decided that I couldn't face Mari again without having done something, tantrum or no tantrum. He loped along easily beside us, strangely like Brandon, just as solemn, but it didn't sit as well in his face. Tom said goodbye at the bottom of the hill, and hared off up through the woods to check on the saplings that he had been planting. It left me and James. Alone. Awkward. He glanced my way.

"I really am sorry about the other day."

"You have nothing to apologise for."

He shrugged, but said nothing. We carried on in an uneasy silence up the hill.

"I'm sorry about your father," he said, eventually.

"And yours," I said. "I hear he's getting better?"

"Slowly."

The silence descended again. It was unbearable. "Where have you worked before?" I asked. He didn't answer right away, so I qualified it with an, "have you always done this kind of work?"

"Uh, the last year or so," he said. "I worked for Granville Alan."

The name wrenched memories of Sunday services on summer holidays from my memory. Hour upon hour of tracing my fingers over the animal-carved pews, only to be told gently, but firmly, that they were massively expensive Granville Alan one-of-a-kinds and not to be touched. Mr Alan had, however, been sitting nearby once. He had strode over, regardless of the service going on, hunkered down in front of me, beard bushy, eyes bright blue, and said, "of course you can touch them. They're not ruddy museum pieces." Then he had straightened up and sat back in his own pew.

"I met him once," I said.

James nodded slowly.

"He taught you carpentry?"

He didn't answer. He still barely looked at me but now his shoulders had sagged again. His face had shuttered closed, and suddenly, it dawned.

"Was he in the accident?"

James stopped walking.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm so sorry."

He looked at me, straight in the eye, for the first time. "It's not your fault," he said. "Why should you apologise?"

I shrugged. "The way you looked at me those weeks ago … it was my Dad's boat. His plan. His trip for all the business men and women of Barton. He needn't have taken them out to sea. It needn't have happened."

James blinked slowly. "Mr Alan needn't have gone. It was his pride that made him go that night and blow off Mrs Bates."

I shrugged back at him.

James bit his lip, slowly. "Brandon says that you're still unsure whether coming here was a good idea."

I shrugged again.

He sighed, and we started walking again. "I didn't know how I could go on after Mr Alan died. Working in his studio was the only thing that I had ever been good at, and after the accident, his distant relatives turned up, cleared out the studio, then cleared off. I went from having a job I loved, learning with the best possible teacher, as happy as I had ever been, to not having the space or the tools, let alone the help. All of my plans crashed the day that he died."

It was the most I had got out of him. I rather suspected that it was the most anyone had got out of him in weeks. I nodded.

"You've got to understand," he continued, suddenly more open, suddenly stopping and meeting my gaze, full on, "that we know what you've lost. Cliff told us before you arrived."

"Oh did he?"

A brief smile twitched across his mouth. "Yes." The smile disappeared, and resolute air returned. "Ellis, you lost your father, your house, your money, and your job, and yet you picked up, found a job, moved your family and came to the least likely place, not for comfort, but to help us rebuild." The words had tumbled out, faster than he was thinking. He paused. "It wasn't your fault in the…" He swallowed a curse, and sighed. "It wasn't your fault in the first place," he said, calmer, "and yet you turned your life around."

I sighed. "You make it sound so impressive when you say it like that."

"It _is _impressive. Meeting you made me want to sort myself out, and move on. _You_ did that Ellis." He smiled again. "It's like that flowery book that Cate tried to make me read. You routed out all that wasn't life and carried on."

"Yeah, but…"

He continued standing in front of me. "No," he said. "That book for all its silliness, had some real sense in it. I remember something about how he didn't want to die and then discover that he hadn't lived."

"To live deep and suck the marrow out of life."

He frowned with recognition. "Right," he said.

"_Walden."_

"Right!" he said, clearer. He smiled a little. "I think you'll suck the marrow out of life again. Just you wait."

I laughed. It wasn't until later, when I unearthed my much thumbed copy of _Walden _that Dad had given me for Christmas, years ago, that I found the inscription that he had written:

_Not till we have lost the world_, _do we begin to find ourselves._

I was glad that I was on my own. It sent hot tears down my cheeks and splashing off the tea-ringed cover. I missed Dad then, more than ever before. I had confided in him over the years, much more than Mum or Mari. I had lost the person to whom I told my secrets and worries, except I hadn't: despite spidery writing, fading ink and passing years, there was still something of him on the page, something from his choice of words and knowledge of what I needed. My world had come undone, but maybe, just possibly, I could start to find myself again.

* * *

**Thank you, as always, to my lovely faithful band of reviewers. I really appreciate it. And Happy Birthday to my sister, who badgered me into posting today. **

_**Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, Walden **_**and **_**Toy Story 3 **_**are not mine. They are Jane Austen's, Henry David Thoreau's and Pixar's, respectively. With grateful thanks for their combined genius. **


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

I have come to discover that when life appears to be on a somewhat even keel, some great kraken comes along and rocks the boat. Or eats you all and destroys the ship. Or, you know, somewhere in between. Cynical, maybe, but realistic. Apart from the kraken imagery, that is. I was happier, Mari and Brandon were quietly ambling along together, we had no heating, but James was sorting that out. Plumbers were scheduled, and radiators were on order. Mum and Maggie were both getting on quietly, Mum spending more time with Diana and her myriad of social functions, Maggie dividing her time between school, being scornful about school, and Nancy. The bookshop was just about sorted out. James had worked like nothing on earth to get it done in time. Dried out by the heat from the stoves, the walls had been cleaned, prepared and painted. The flagstones had been re-laid. Shelving had been put up. An ageing till had been bought and placed on the polished wood counter top which James had installed. It was all looking amazing. Books had poured in after Brandon's first offering. Clearly he had spread the word, and we had been inundated. We all pitched in to help sort them. Several nights of drinks, stacks of books, and Mari's horrified expression as Nancy held an antique book in one hand, and a doughnut in the other were paying off. It was, however, on the last of these nights, that the kraken awoke.

"What can I do?" I asked, trailing a finger along the spines of the books, the other hand firmly wrapped around a glass of wine.

"Nothing." Mari, ensconced in a large, slightly battered armchair, another gift from Brandon's parents' attic, barely looked up.

I scoffed. "I can do something. Is the till sorted out?"

"Yep."

"Back room?"

"Yep."

"The computer system," I said. "You wanted to have some kind of way of looking up books, recording what you have…"

"WyWy," she said, teeth clenched around a pencil as she flipped through a book. Finally, she looked up, registered my baffled expression, and, simultaneously, spat out the pencil. "WiFi," she said, "and a killer Excel spreadsheet."

"What?"

"It was Lou," she said, simply.

I slumped into the other chair. "There must be something else that needs doing."

A wry expression appeared over her face. "So…you can dish it out, but you can't take it."

"What?"

She smiled. "The uber-controlling I-must-do-all-the-work thing."

"I don't do that."

She flipped through the final book on the stack. "Yeah," she said. "You do."

"Come on…"

She raised an eyebrow. "Why is Mum going to all these social functions with Diana?"

Baffled at her quick change of direction, I shrugged. "I don't know, but it's better for her to be out of the house, doing things."

"All right Dr. Phil." She stood up, and cradled the stack of books against her with one hand, whilst with the other she steadied herself, climbing the ladder to the shelves." Next question," she said, over her shoulder. "Why would Mum go to an embroidery circle when she can't do a single thing with a needle?"

"I…" I didn't have a clue. "Does it matter?" I asked, finally. "She seems happy or at least," I amended, "happier. She can branch out, you know."

"Yes," said Marianne, slowly, "but is it just because she's bored out of her mind?"

"What are you talking about?"

A knock at the door took her attention for a second. Exhausted as I was, Mari was up a ladder. I hauled myself out of the chair, leaving my wine on the coffee table (another ex-Moreland acquisition) and walked over to the door.

"I think you know," said Marianne, leaning precariously across the shelves to replace the newly sorted books.

I rolled my eyes, then opened the door to one of the most attractive men I've ever seen.

"Hi," he said, all cheek bones and tousled dark blonde hair. "Are you, by any chance, Marianne Dashwood?"

I seriously thought about saying yes. I squashed it. Then smiled, hoping against hope that there was nothing in my teeth and forgetting, for a glorious moment, about Ed. "No, I'm Ellis, her sister." I held out a hand. He shook it. I nearly died.

"Marcus," he said, and smiled. "Marc, to my friends."

"Of which I'm sure you have many," I said before I could stop myself. I only hoped that the horror at what I had just said didn't register too obviously on my face.

"Thank you," he said, and laughed. A really gorgeous laugh. A knee bucklingly, head swimmingly great laugh. I nearly concussed myself on the door frame, managed to turn around and say, "Mari? There's…uh…someone…Marc, well, Marcus but… Marc…"

Thankfully my seemingly never-ending stream of crazy dried up when, as she turned to look at me in disbelief, her foot slipped, her hands were too full and not fast enough, and she pitched sideways off the ladder. As she whacked into the ground, Marc skidded to a halt beside her, already on his knees.

"Marianne?" he asked, a hand at her head. He turned to me. "It is Marianne, right?"

"Right," I said, kneeling by her other side.

Slowly, she blinked, groaned, then tried to sit up.

"Hey, hey, careful," said Marc, gently helping her.

She managed to make sitting before blinking again heavily. "Wow," she said. "That hurt."

Marc laughed again. "I can imagine."

She looked up into his face and smiled. "Thank you," she said.

"You want to try and get up?"

She nodded, then clearly regretted it, clutching her head. "Yes," she said.

He offered her a hand up, except when she tried to put her weight on her right ankle, she had to also grab his shoulder to stop her from going down again. "Wow," she said again.

Yet again, he smiled. "I think we should maybe get you seen to."

"Yes," I said, reasonably ineffectually.

Mari looked between us. "I'm fine," she said. "Just a bit bruised."

"You might be, but I'm not taking any chances."

Marc grinned. "I can take you right now. My car's just outside."

"I can do it."

He turned, Mari still leaning heavily on him, and smiled, charmingly. "I'd like to help," he said. "I think my sudden appearance surprised her off the ladder anyway."

"I can do it," I said again. "I'll just have to go and tell Mum, or leave a note at least, then lock up …"

Mari was looking a little pale, and despite her protestations a minute before, was now leaning even more on Marc. "For pity's sake, Ellis, this is exactly what I was saying before. There's a fine line between independence and arrogance, and you need to learn to let people help."

Marc grinned again, a little guiltily. "I'll take her ahead," he said, "and you can follow when you're done here. I'd really like to help, and this way it's all sorted sooner."

"Thank you," said Mari, firmly and she led the way, albeit hopping, out to his car.

I was left alone, still jangled from the shock of Mari's fall and the sudden appearance of Marc and his impossibly hot face, not to mention the quick, if shaky words that Mari had just hurled about independence and arrogance. I tried to unravel them, to put them together with her cryptic words about Mum, but all I got was more confusion. Quickly, I checked the wood burner, made sure it was safe, then turned out the lights, and locked up. I left a hurried note on the kitchen table, dug out my jacket, checked that there wasn't actually an entire bag of salad stuck between my teeth, scolded myself for caring about my appearance in the face of an impossible hot guy while my sister was injured, remembered her scolding tone and decided that I shouldn't feel too bad, then, finally, stopped talking to myself, got into the car and drove toward the hospital.

* * *

Six hours, one diagnosis of a sprained ankle, one prescription of painkillers, one crutch and a lot of hair tossing later, I helped Mari into my car, thanked Marc once again, then got in and drove away. At first, we were silent. Six hours in A&E can do that to you. Then, Mari turned to me.

"He's amazingly attractive."

"Yes," I said eventually. "He is."

"He has a look of a young Charleton Heston about him."

"I was going to say Albert Enemy."

"Who?"

"You know," I said, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel as we waited at a red light. "The guy in _Young Elizabeth_."

She frowned. "Do you mean _Young Victoria_?"

"Oh. Maybe."

She smiled. "Rupert Friend?" she asked. "You meant Rupert Friend. Not Albert Enemy."

"Oh." Names have never been my strong suit. "Maybe."

She laughed. "I see where you're going with it. Not," she added, "the name. That problem you have is just weird."

"I'm fine with the casts of _Buffy_ and _Dawson's Creek_."

"Yeah," she said. "That just makes it weirder."

We settled back into silence. The roads were pretty quiet and we zipped along. It gave me time to churn the evening over. Pictures of Marc talking to Mari, his head bent low, his hands gesturing wildly surfaced. Snippets of heated conversation about art and books and why the Turner prize is defunct and why the MGM prom was an outrage swirled. Despite the rapidly swelling ankle and the hours sat surrounded by an A&E department with more than its fair share of drunken party goers, Mari hadn't looked so happy in a while. A thought nagged. Finally, I turned to her. "You like him."

"Who?"

I gave her a look.

She gave me a look right back. "I've only just met him."

I raised an eyebrow. "That has never stopped you before."

She grinned, both of us recalling the countless times she had phoned me to tell me that despite the two weeks/ two days/ two hours/ twenty minutes/ meeting of eyes across a crowded room, she had shared with Sam/Dave/Roddy/Rhodri/Fritz, there was this undeniable connection and she was certain that she was in love. Another thought, however, was now nagging.

"So," I started. "What about Brandon?"

She turned to look at me, just as I pulled off the road and up the drive to the house. "What _about_ Brandon?" she asked.

I pulled up outside the flat, and stopped the car. "Mari," I began, but she cut me off.

"I tired, El," she said. "I just want to go to bed. Can we talk about this in the morning?" She flung open the door, steadied the crutch on the cobbles, then levered herself out before I could get out and around the car to help. Instead, I opened the door up to the flat, and gave her a hand up the stairs. Her determination not to answer my questions about Brandon, and my worries about him and her met in a clash of silence, only broken by Mum, leaping off the sofa to hug Mari, hard.

* * *

People who go out running used to confound me. If you genuinely have spare time, then spend it in bed. My motto has been good to me. It has worked. Just about. Except right now I don't have any spare time. But still. I woke up the morning after Mari's impromptu hospital visit feeling both exhausted and yet jumpy. I quietly dressed, unearthed my trainers from the bottom of the wardrobe, and let myself out of the house. Then, inexplicably, I ran, right down to the sea, along the beach, up through the town, past the church, back along the little road, up the service road to the estate and along the edge of the wood to the boat-house. I stopped there, exhausted, feet aching and sides splitting, but feeling less weird. That was until Brandon appeared at one of the massive windows, coffee in hand and made 'would you like a cup' gestures. To which I nodded. I sank down into one of the wooden chairs, kicked off my trainers and groaned.

"I didn't think that you were the Mr. Motivator type," said Brandon at my elbow.

I cracked an eye, and accepted the coffee he held out. "I'm not," I croaked. "I just had some pent up energy."

He smirked and sat opposite me, propping his feet up on the edge of my chair.

"What are you doing here this early?" I asked, a little grumpiness edging in.

"What are _you _doing here this early?" he asked in reply. "At least this is my place of work. What's your excuse?"

I scowled. "I was running."

"And that's weird enough. What possible benefit would running do for you? You barely eat and rarely sleep."

"That's not true!"

He smirked again. "Yeah. You don't eat or sleep at all."

"What do you know?"

"Mari told me."

"Yeah, well, what does she know?" I slumped in my chair.

He picked up his coffee and disappeared through the sliding doors into the boat-house. I remained in my seat, exhausted, slightly comatose, and yet suddenly very hungry. "What are you doing?" I called.

He reappeared at the door. "Making you breakfast."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "What are you making for me? Not meat again, are you?"

He smirked yet again, reliving his moment of trying to force meatballs on me a few days ago, accompanied with a motherly scold about how I don't eat enough. He crooked a finger at me, a sure sign to follow him back into the shiny, woody comfort of the boat-house, but I groaned.

"Can't I just stay here?"

"No."

"Brandon!"

"It's too cold." He disappeared again, only to yell "hurry up" seconds later.

"Fine," I said, groaned and levered my way out of the chair, picked up my trainers and staggered up to the bar where a fresh coffee cup sat next to a glass of juice and a plate of toast.

"This is it?" I said as I sat down and started spreading the toast with the open jam that was sitting next to it. "After the scolding and the meat-threats?"

His back was turned, in front of the hob. "No," he said. "There're hash browns, scrambled eggs and tomatoes as well. I just thought you'd probably start gnawing on the furniture soon, and I wouldn't want any of these surfaces ruined."

I grimaced at his back, crunched on the toast for a few seconds, and then finally took the time to register the changes. A few weeks of several skilled craftsmen sanding and varnishing had brought the walls up to a honey-coloured sheen. It reflected the light across the walls from the massive windows, making the whole room glow. The bar, also, shone with elbow grease and love, and the kitchen, while missing a few cupboard doors and the odd appliance, looked fabulous behind the long bar. Tables and chairs were still conspicuously absent, but they were ordered, and would be arriving in the next few weeks, or so the order form on my desk had told me, just days before. "It looks good," I said, turning back to Brandon and leaning on the bar. "Really good."

He glanced over his shoulder. "Yeah," he said, and grinned.

Moments later, he served up two plates of steaming hot delicious breakfast, his with additional bacon which, while I couldn't it admit to him, smelled incredible. "Cheers," he said, chinging his coffee cup against mine.

Half way through the food I resurfaced. "This is amazing."

"Thanks." He paused. "You wish you had bacon?"

I grimaced at him, but was saved from lying by his phone ringing, nearly vibrating its way right off the counter-top.

"Hello?" he said. Then he grinned. A rare sight, but nice to see. "Right," he said, slowly, clearly enjoying himself. "Why suspicious?" He smiled to himself, nodding along with whoever was on the other end. Then he nearly laughed. "No, OK, but I'm not sure you need to… no." He caught my eye and smiled again. "No," he said again. "OK, fine I'll come and check it out." He paused again, then, taking a sip of his coffee, nearly spat it out again. "Oh, no, I don't. Even if I did, I don't think it's needed." He leaned back, smiling. "Fine," he said. "I'll be there soon." He snapped his phone shut, shaking his head slowly. "Your sister," he said, "is nuts."

"I know. Which one?"

He picked up his plate and cup, and dumped them both in the sink. "Maggie."

I tried to bat his hands away from my plate and cup as I dredged them for tiny remains, but he wrestled them away. I scowled. Then sighed. "It's no surprise. What has she done now?"

"You'd better put your trainers back on," he said over his shoulder as he ran water over the plates and pans.

Anyone avoiding telling me what either Mari or Maggie has done has always been a bad sign. "What did she want?" I asked again, fumbling with the laces on my shoes.

"It would appear," he said, "that Maggie and Nancy have been having a sleepover in Nancy's room, using her telescope…"

"Cliff's telescope," I interrupted.

"Whatever. _A _telescope to spy for possible Enid Blyton-esque shady characters, and they think they've spotted one."

"Really?"

He smiled over his shoulder. "They sounded quite surprised too. It's why she phoned. I think it was the only way Maggie could stop Nancy from marching down the hill and confronting him."

I forced my trainers onto my aching feet. "What made him suspicious?"

"Something about a fancy car and a baseball cap pulled down low. Blonde-ish hair? I don't know. I'm not sure that Maggie even got a chance at the telescope, but clearly Nancy is convinced enough that they told me to bring my gun." He finished wiping off the plates, left the pans in to soak, then picked up his phone and keys.

"Your what?"

The grin flashed back. "I don't have one," he said. "I don't know why they think I might."

"No," I said, following him to the door, hobbling along. "Wait. Fancy car? Was it a Jeep?"

He shrugged. "Might have been."

"And blonde? And…oh drat. I'll bet it's Marc."

He held the door open for me. "Marc who?"

"Willoughby, I think. We met him last night."

I was already through the door and down the stairs. Brandon, however, had stopped. "_Marcus _Willoughby?"

"Yeah. You know him?"

His expression had turned dark. "Yes," he said, slowly. "His aunt lives around here."

"He lives with her?"

He seemed to be taking a long time to lock up. Finally, he turned around. "What?" he said. "Oh, on and off. His parents live on the north coast."

He started walking briskly, past me and down the path. My tired legs slowly worked back into gear, although he appeared to be going faster and faster.

"You all right?" I asked, somewhat breathlessly as I nearly jogged to keep up.

"Fine," was the terse response. "Let's just sort this out for Maggie. Then I can go to work."

He had skirted the formal gardens, and had circumnavigated the warren of tiny paths criss-crossing the woods to get back up to the car park. The house slowly came into view, including the windows of Nancy's room, in the tower, where immediately the lights flashed on and off. Brandon gave a brief wave to them, then strode on across the nearly empty car park, up to the only car that wasn't his: a dark green Land Rover. Still breathlessly trying to keep up, I wasn't really concentrating until he marched up and tapped on the window. It was only then that it occurred to me that Marc's car was neither a Land Rover, nor was it green.

"Brandon," I started to say. "I don't think that it's…"

He turned to me, just as the window wound down. Brandon turned back. His stony glare of the last ten minutes washed away. "Sorry," he said, all geniality. "I was wondering if I could help."

"Oh, thanks. I was hoping to see Elinor Dashwood. You wouldn't know her would you?"

Brandon's surprise at seeing my expression was nothing to the surprise I felt at hearing that voice.

"She's right here," he said, uncertainly. "Ellis?"

I took an involuntary step back. The car door swung open. Edward Ferrars got out of his car, and I thought about throwing up.

* * *

"Hi," he said.

I froze. "Brandon, this is Ed…Edward Ferrars."

Brandon smiled and held out a hand. "Brandon Moreland."

They shook. I gulped.

"Is that Edward with an 'E'?"

I closed my eyes.

"Uh, yep."

I opened my eyes to find Brandon smirking at me. "Well," he said. "I'm going to go and give Maggie and Nancy the all clear. You all right here, Ellis?"

I nodded, feeling not just a little faint.

"Nice to meet you Ed."

"You too."

Brandon smiled again, this time not quite so smugly, then loped off towards the house.

"He seems nice."

I rubbed my forehead. "Appearances can be deceptive."

"Are you all right?"

I looked up at him as he smiled at me, concern lacing together his features. I gulped again, and remembered that I hadn't seen a mirror or, in fact, a deodorant, since running four miles. "Fine," I said. "A little bedraggled."

He laughed. Everything that I had tried to convince myself of crashed away. His smile really was that cute. His eyes really were that shade of brown. I really did feel something much more than just the appreciation of a nice face on a good friend.

"Do you…I need to go and get changed, but do you want a coffee or something? Have you had breakfast?"

Ed gave me a strange smile, like he thought I might be a little nuts, but said, "coffee would be great, thanks."

"OK. It's this way." I started to go toward the path.

"Can I just get my stuff?" he asked, and diverted to the car, where he wound up the wind again, and fished a bag off the back seat. A suspiciously large bag.

"How long are you staying?" It came out more horrified than I meant it to.

He locked the car, and shouldered the bag. "Not long," he said, half placatory, half defensive. "If I could use a bit of floor for a night, that'd be great, but I'm actually on my way down to my parents."

"Right," I said, relief flooding me. "The big anniversary bash."

"Right," he said. "I thought I'd make the most of coming this way. Make the most of a good excuse to lop a day off being stuck in a house with my family." He grinned.

I smiled, involuntarily.

"This way?" he said, and we walked off together towards the flat. After a moment of silence, he blurted, "I'm sorry I haven't been in contact."

"It's fine. I've really busy anyway."

He nodded. "Me too. I had lots to catch up on after my enforced sabbatical at Fi's."

I nodded along, no doubt looking like one of those weird bobbing dinosaurs. The poison spitting kind. I stopped before he noticed the comparison.

"Even so," he continued, "I should have at least emailed or something."

"I thought about messaging you on _facebook_ the other day, when John told me about your parents' party."

"We're not friends on there, are we?"

The thought never even occurred to me. I had spent every waking hour with him for nearly four weeks, and then seen him over every weekend for the next four weeks: we had either talked face-to-face or had talked over the phone. Neither of us had any need for _facebook_. Why type when you can talk? Eight more weeks on, and I just assumed that we were already 'friends'. He had been my friend in real life. I had blindly assumed that the technological world mirrored the real one. That and I hadn't had time to go on _facebook_ at all in the last few months.

"I sent a friend request," he went on. "I wondered if you had ignored it."

I was horrified. "No," I said quickly. "No, I wanted to talk to you."

"And me you."

Silence settled again, a little more gently this time.

"Next time that I'm on the computer I'll accept it," I said eventually.

He nodded, and smiled. "Good."

* * *

Seven hours and one frantic trip to the boat-house just to find it empty, found me bursting into the Delaford Kitchen, practically falling into Brandon's arms as he cleared tables.

"What the…?"

"I'm sorry," I said, "I'm sorry." I turned and immediately started clearing as well.

He said nothing for a full minute. I could, however, feel him watching me. "What are you doing here?" he asked eventually.

"Oh, you know," I said vaguely, wiping down tables and replacing salt shakers and pepper grinders.

"No."

I ignored him.

"Ellis?"

I looked up. He looked taller than usual. "What?"

"Why are you hiding from Edward, after all this time?"

Damn his ninja-like intuition. I slumped into a chair. "It's weird. It's really, really weird."

"Really?"

I ignored him again. "My family is all thrilled to see him. Maggie dragged him off to the tree house. Mari was hobbling around the kitchen crafting cake. Mum was squirrelling around finding extra bedding, asking if he wanted to stay several nights."

"OK…and why is Mari hobbling?"

"Oh, twisted ankle. Last night."

"What?"

I waved away his concern. "She's fine. It's not important. The point is, my family all clearly adore him, and I had not factored this in."

He sat down opposite me. "Factored it into what? Your general life-plan freak out?"

I gave him a look. He smirked right back.

"It's not funny. I thought Mari hated him and Mum thought he was spawn of the devil or something."

"You did not," he scoffed. "You're just thinking up reasons why you can't contemplate being with him." He raised his eyebrows. "_Lame_ reasons."

I leaned back in my chair. I slumped further. "You liked him?" I asked eventually.

He smiled. "I wouldn't marry him. I prefer the ladies."

I threw a menu at him.

"Yes," he said, flashing a grin. "I liked him. He seemed nice. He seemed massively in awe of you, despite the weird running hair you had going on."

I contemplated throwing the cruet at him.

"Stop it," he said before I could, and confiscated everything to his corner of the table.

I sighed. "I can't go back."

"Ellis…"

"I can't," I repeated. "Not right yet. I need a bit of breathing space."

He looked at me, keenly. "Do your family know how you feel about him?"

"I'm not sure that_ I_ know how I feel about him," I said, exasperated.

He gave me a look of disbelief.

"I _don't._"

"OK."

I sighed again. "Please, can't I just hang out here for a bit?"

He stood up and took the last few plates back to the kitchen. "I'm going home," he said. "I need to lock up."

"Brandon!"

He reappeared in the kitchen doorway. "I've got to go. Cate's expecting me to come and pick up her preliminary plans for the garden. You do want them, don't you?"

"Oh. Yes. What are they like?"

He gave me a look. "It's weird, you know, how you snap between pathetic-loser-Ellis, and savvy-workaholic-Ellis."

"It's a gift," I said with a shrug.

"Well I've got to go and pick up the plans from her, whatever happens. Then I'm due to look at a house later."

"What house?"

He reappeared again, wiping down plates. "A house for me," he said.

The confusion of the last day fogged my mind. "Why are you looking at a house?"

He gave me a long, patronising look. "Because I've moved home and left my restaurant in London, largely, I might add, thanks to you, and while my parents appear to be thrilled to have me to stay, still, I don't particularly want to be _that_ thirty-two year old man, living with his _parents_."

"Oh."

"So," he continued, throwing the tea towel down on the side, "I have an appointment to look over a house at eight."

"Can I come?"

"No."

I frowned. "Brandon," I wheedled, "come on. My sisters are mad, my Mum's not much better, I have a weird boy lurking at home, waiting for me. The very least you could do is let me hang out with you for a bit."

He raised an eyebrow. "The very least?"

"Yes."

I sighed. In fact, he groaned. "Fine," he said, finally, "but you are not butting in, you are not pretending to be my wife, you are not planning nurseries or playrooms."

I smiled, somewhat angelically. "Would I?" I said, eyes wide.

"Yes." He sighed again. "Fine. Come on." Then he led the way out to his car.

* * *

The Moreland's house was just as I expected. Although it was dark, the low, wonky outline was visible against the last rays of the day. Lights shone in the windows. As we walked up to the door, I noticed more signs of a long family life: wellies, discarded in the porch; handfuls of shells left on windowsills; a cat, stealing through the gloomy undergrowth.

"We're here!" called Brandon from the hall as he dumped everything he was holding on a table, already piled high. "Hey," he said, "do you want to go and find Cate? You could have a quick look at the garden plans before you take them away."

"Sure," I said, slipping off my shoes as a matter of course.

"Third door on the right," he said. "You can't miss it."

He was right. The corridor boasted several plain pine doors, all stripped back, all with original latches. It was only the third one, on the right, which also boasted a large letter 'C', made out of dinosaur stickers. I knocked tentatively.

"Yeah?"

I opened the door, and found myself standing in the doorway of a small, jam-packed room.

"Hey!" she said, and scooted backwards on a desk chair. "Come on in." She scooted far enough back to the stereo, and turned it down.

With Cate scooting back, there was barely any floor space to walk on. "I'm fine here," I said, leaning against the frame.

"Oh, don't be silly. Come and sit down." She scooted back to the massive desk which dominated one side of the room. "See?" she said. "Plenty of room. Throw everything off the sofa."

Tentatively, I swept it all to one side and sat down, narrowly missing whacking my head on the underside of her cabin bunk. Clearly our definitions of 'plenty of room' were somewhat different.

With me in and the door closed, there was room for Cate to turn her chair around again, and face me. "How's things?" she asked, finally. "You're here with Brandon?"

"Yes," I said, "although not _with,_ with."

She grinned. "Fine. Can't blame a girl for trying."

"I think I can."

She grinned again. "I assume," she said, moving on, "that you're here for the garden plans."

"Well, yes, though I didn't want to just come in and start talking business."

She twirled back round to the desk. "It's fine," she shot over her shoulder. "It's all I've thought about for the last couple of weeks." With that she unfurled paper across the desk. "Come and have a look," she said, and I got up to look over her shoulder.

* * *

Almost an hour later, armed with stiff drinks, Brandon appeared at the door.

"Dinner's just about ready," he said with a wry smile. "Not that you two had probably noticed."

Cate made appreciate noises as she sipped her G&T, and rolled her neck. "My neck had."

"Your parents aren't feeding me, are they?" I asked. "I was going to grab something when I got home tonight."

He raised a sardonic eyebrow. "No doubt of the processed, microwavable variety."

"You're such a snob," said Cate, getting up and nearly taking me out in the process. "You don't know what you're missing, refusing my Snickers-marshmallow-digestive surprise."

He stepped back into the hall to let us out of the room. "Is the surprise that you haven't yet died of massive heart failure?"

She kicked him on the way past, before stopping suddenly. "Oh, Ellis, don't forget to take the plans with you."

"Are you sure?"

She grinned. "I've got copies of them _everywhere_." She squeezed back into the room, rolled the papers up, and put them into a tube. "You can have another look through, and show Tom and Cliff as well."

"They'll love them," I said.

She made a face.

"They _will._"

Brandon ruffled her hair as she walked past. She batted his hand away. He smirked. "They will," he repeated. "They're great."

"Thanks," she said. "Now, I've had enough of this adulation, sycophants. Let's go eat dinner."

* * *

By the time Brandon dropped me off, it was pretty late. I stole up the stairs to the flat, let myself in silently, and found myself face-to-face with Ed.

"I was…uh…just getting a glass of water."

"Right," I said, sidling past him. "Well I should be going to bed."

"Ellis," he said suddenly, just as I was about to escape. I turned around reluctantly.

"Yes?"

He looked uneasy. "At Norland. What happened there…" He was silent for a moment, just watching me.

A small flower of hope blossomed. "I'm sorry if I confused matters." I felt myself smile a little. It had been torture, this kind of confusion, but maybe not altogether unpleasant.

"I shouldn't have…I think I maybe led you on, somehow."

The flower withered and died. Led me on? "No," I said, slowly. "I was just saying goodbye. It didn't mean anything." Forget what I told Brandon's estate agent about my being pregnant and married to him: _this_ lie felt like an elephant on my chest.

"Really?" he asked, taking a step towards me. "I thought…" His chest heaved. He took another step. "Ellis, I…"

"Don't worry about it," I said, before my brain could kick into gear. "Have you got everything you need?"

He didn't answer for a moment. He just frowned. "I…" he said. He let out a long breath. "Yes, thank you." He scuffed across to the kitchen, dried himself off a mug from the draining board, and filled it up with water. I, meanwhile, was riveted to the spot. He turned around. "You all right?" he asked, eventually. He smiled, tentatively.

It was like I had tripped and fallen into ten weeks ago. Before kissing him. Before uprooting my miserable family and bringing them down here. Even before my life had been whipped out from underneath me. He was standing there in a t-shirt and pyjama trousers, his hair all messy, not artfully like Marc's had been, but from an innate inability to either a)use a comb or b) stop ruffling up his hair. I smiled back. "I'm fine," I said, eventually. "Weird, but fine."

His lips twitched. "Good."

"Well, "I said, feeling the awkwardness beginning to creep in again. "Good night."

He scratched his head. He smiled again. Then he nodded. "Night, Ellis."

* * *

I didn't get up quite as early the next morning: I hadn't slept all that well. My mind had churned up so many things from the night before, and I had gone over and over them until they all made no sense. Why did he think he had led me on and, come to that, why shouldn't he have led me on? Why was he taking responsibility for the whole thing when it was me who practically molested him? Also, and perhaps, most crucially, why did I still care? Why hadn't I just let it go by now? I kissed him, he then didn't talk to me for nearly eight weeks, and then he apologised for in some way inciting me to kiss him. Our relationship, such that it was, was clearly dead in the water. Finally, after a night of psyching myself up, I got out of bed, checked my hair that it wasn't too wild, pulled my dressing gown around me, and went in search of Ed, to sort this out once and for all. When I got to the living room, however, the bed settee was folded away, the bedding was all piled neatly in the corner, and a note was propped up on a book, on the coffee table.

'_Dear Maggie',_ it read. '_Thank you for allowing me to stay the night, and lending me the reading fodder. It was fascinating, as always.' _I looked down. The note had been resting on top of _The Ultimate Encyclopaedia of Knots and Ropework._ I sighed. Then, I turned back to the letter. _'I'm glad to see that you've all settled in so well. When I'm back home at work, I'll be able to imagine what you're all doing so much better now that I've seen where you live. Keep saving your money and doing well at school, and though I might not be able to come with you, I'll be happy to advise you on whatever adventure you choose to take. Please send my thanks to the rest of your family for their hospitality, and I'll hope to see you soon. With love, skulls and crossbones, Ed._

* * *

**Just as fairies revive with clapping, I thrive on sycophantic attention. Thank you for the reviews. Without them, I wilt. **


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

"Ellis, did you know?" Diana turned to me, an accusatory glare only partially hidden behind the well-formed mask of social nicety. Charlotte made 'abort' signs at me from behind her mother's back, shaking her head, waving a hand across her neck.

"No."

It was a week after Ed had left, and lying hadn't just become easier; it was becoming my first response. "Why were you out all evening?" had been smacked down with a, "work," faster than the speed of light. Mari's probing, "did you sort things out?" was shelved with a well-aimed, "nothing to sort out. We're fine." She had raised an eyebrow, but it was all she was going to get. Finding myself at the boat-house again at dawn after another exhausting run a few days later, I took out a deceptively thoughtful, "how are you doing?" with a curt, "fine." Brandon had smirked. It wasn't all that thoughtful at all. He had enjoyed it too much, but then, his enjoyment was short lived, as Marc turned up again. So, within the maelstrom of my lies about Ed, and Brandon wrestling with his feelings for Mari as she hung around Marc, it seemed only too apt that Charlotte chose that moment to also announce that she was dating Tom. It was not exactly a big surprise for most of us, except it turned out that Diana and Cliff really had no idea. Cliff didn't care. He liked Tom. He loved Charlotte. It seemed ideal. Diana's objections were along more of an intangible, theoretical nature.

"It's the principle of the thing," she said, turning back to Charlotte, happily missing her wild gesticulations. "Tom's a perfectly nice young man. I just don't like the idea of your sneaking around behind my back."

"Understandably," put in Ruth. "After all, last time you were sneaking around behind _my _back, nine months later Charlotte arrived, and you found yourself married to that French idiot."

Diana reddened. Charlotte rolled her eyes. "Gran…" she began.

"Marcel Lestrade was certainly not worthy of having his daughter named after him," Ruth protested, "not, I imagine, that you're his only offspring."

Charlotte gave up.

The irritation of her own mother seemed to throw Diana off her scolding tack. "Well," she said, a little helplessly, "I'd glad that you've found such a nice boy."

"Have him to dinner," put in Ruth from behind her tea cup.

Charlotte grimaced.

"It would be nice darling," said Diana, slowly.

She grimaced some more.

"Maybe over Christmas would be best," said Ruth, smiling broadly. "He could meet the whole family properly at once. Has he ever met Tessa?"

Charlotte looked, somehow, even more grim. "I'll bring him round next week," she said, broken, then walked over to the drinks cupboard.

* * *

Marc was everywhere. He came back a few days after Mari's accident to check on her. It was only then that I twigged that he wasn't, in fact, some kind of strolling damsel-saver, like a Superman without the tights, but in fact was an architectural history student who had scraped together from his shelves a stack of books to give to the second-hand book shop, largely in the hopes of wangling a look the house.

"I hadn't bargained," he said, over the top of a cup of steaming tea, "on anyone throwing themselves off a ladder after one glance at my face. Is it really that unattractive?"

Mari laughed. "Entirely."

He batted his eyelids and grinned.

Mari playfully pushed him in the shoulder. Both of them were flirting. Outrageously. Brandon, who had unfortunately chosen that moment to also drop in and check that Mari wasn't going mad, trapped in our flat, only to discover that she was very well entertained by Marc and his razor sharp cheek bones, looked a little shell-shocked, and murmured something about bread orders and soup, and disappeared back down the stairs. I followed him, relieved to miss the nauseating love-in going on in my living room.

"Brandon?"

He paused, midway through opening his car door.

"Are you all right?"

He looked drained. He took a deep breath. "I'm fine," he said, lying as if it came as naturally to him as it did to me.

"Really?"

He gave me a long appraising look. "I thought we had an agreement," he said eventually. "No talking about…them."

"You keep breaking that."

He grimaced.

"Fine. See you tomorrow?"

He rubbed the back of his neck, awkwardly. "I'm away for a few days."

"Again?" I sounded more incredulous than I intended.

He shrugged. "Sorry. I'll be back before next week."

"It's fine," I said, eventually.

He smiled a little, then ducked into his car. "See you soon," he mouthed through the windscreen as he pulled away. I shivered, and shoved my hands in the pockets of my body warmer. I felt immeasurably sad for him. That I had lost Ed was my own fault. He was losing Mari simply through the virtue of being older and less chiselled.

* * *

Tom sat opposite my desk, nursing a cup of tea, and looking morose.

"Snap out of it," I said, rifling through papers, desperately trying to sort out my desk so that when Cate arrived, there would be somewhere for her to put the newest plans out. I was a little behind schedule. She was already ten minutes late.

"Snap out of what?" she asked, bursting in. "Sorry Ellis," she added. "I thought Brandon was around to give me a lift. I hadn't quite figured on having to walk."

"He's away again," I said from under a pile of paper. "And Tom's moping about having to go to dinner with the Middletons."

"They know?" Cate crowed. "Brilliant! It's been killing me not telling them."

"It's been nice for me," said Tom, gloomily.

Cate waggled her eyebrows. "I'll say. Carrying on in back streets and deserted pubs. What would your parents say?"

Tom leaned back and gave her a long, withering, older-brotherly look.

"Come on," I said. "No more sneaking around? No more lying? It sounds wonderful." My wistful tone may have given a little too much away.

Cate sat down eagerly. "Really? Do tell."

I groaned. "There's nothing to tell. Just, you know, it's good to have things out in the open."

Cate smiled a little. "All right then. And you," she said, turning back to Tom, "Ellis is right, intriguing comments aside. Charlotte's great, you're lucky to have her, so might as well knuckle down and become a Middleton."

He grimaced. "That's what I'm afraid of. It's a bad sign when someone as nutty as Charlotte is the sanest member of her family."

I couldn't help but agree. Ten years older than any of her half-brothers and sisters, she was a good dose less weird than any of them. Nancy was whacky enough. Max, away at boarding school, was aiming for RADA. Theatrical didn't even begin to describe him. Ollie, in sharp contrast, had taken himself off on his gap year to live with Tibetan monks. It was probably all for a bit of peace and quiet. Tessa, however, was probably the main reason for Ollie's solitude. Deceptively small and sweet in appearance, she had, when I had last seen her, all the subtleties and nuances of character of a juggernaut. She was paying her own way through university with the salary from her internet company. What it did, none of us knew. She intended to win _The Apprentice_ in three years. None of us doubted that she would. When she had announced that she wanted to study law her family had, originally, thought it was a wonderful idea. They thought that it would channel her terrifying organisational skills and give an outlet for her voracious debating capacity. It had, in fact, just made her all the more alarming. That, combined with a surreal sense of humour and very little sense of shame made her into what must have seemed to Tom to be a chilling prospect.

"So," I said, hastily moving on, "garden plans?"

Cate scrolled them out across my now relatively clear desk. "I know you saw them a few days ago," she said, "but I have made a few adjustments."

Tom paled.

"It really isn't very different from the original plans that Ellis gave me," she said. "Most of it is reverting back to its original design. The deer park is staying exactly as it is. That's what you said, right?"

I groaned. I thought about whacking my head against the wall. "I hate the deer park," I muttered.

"Sorry?"

I found my rapidly cooling cup of coffee where I had put it down between massive stacks of paper. "Yes," I said, after a long sip. "I am doing as little as possible at present to the deer park."

Cate smiled. "Has the gild of the fancy new job tarnished, just a little?"

"I love it," I said, my chilly hands wrapped around my mug. "I even love watching the deer from my bathroom." I sighed. "The park itself, however, is a bit of a headache."

"She's never managed a deer park before," said Tom, turning to Cate. "It terrifies her. Just like the peacocks."

"No," I said. "Well, first. Yes. The peacocks are a bit vicious. But the deer thing is just weird. I'm a vegetarian, and I have to organise the systematic culling of, what, thirty percent of my herd?"

"Yeah," said Tom. "It's about thirty."

Cate grimaced. "Better not watch _Bambi_. You'll have nightmares about abandoned calves."

Tom laughed. They were both enjoying it a little too much. I rubbed my forehead, and said, "well, right now Amos Rutherford's in charge of it all, so I don't need to worry."

"That is until he accidentally shoots another endangered species."

He was a bit of a liability with his rifle. Mid-conversation a few days earlier when I had finally run him to ground in the woods, he raised said rifle and shot a squirrel out of a tree, before continuing to chat amiably, if a little concisely. I decided, however, to ignore Tom's last comment. "So," I said. "Garden plans."

The mischief disappeared out his face. Reluctantly, Tom leaned forward to look at the papers scrolled out. Then he frowned. "Where's all the rest of them? That's barely a tenth of the grounds, not including Ellis' deer park." He shot me a sardonic smile.

Cate kicked her shoes off and curled up, somehow, in the rickety wooden chair. "Systematic reorganisation," she said, grandly. "Basically, if we work first on the parts that are nearest the house and the parts that will bring in revenue, then we can open sooner."

Tom nodded slowly.

"So I've only so far done the detailed plans for the parterre, which will need work breaking as soon as possible, the formal gardens below, and the walled garden."

Tom put his mug down at his feet, and looked at the plans properly. "These are good," he said eventually. "Really good."

She smiled. "Thank Capability Brown. He did all the hard work on the formal bits."

He nodded slowly. "The walled garden is excellent too, though."

She smiled again. "Thanks."

He nodded again, starting to smile himself. "I think we can do this," he said, sounding most hopeful than he had for days.

"And the sooner you get going on the walled garden, the sooner we can sell the produce, get people up here, open the book shop, open the café…" I put in. "Mrs Jacques is doing an extraordinary job getting the house organised. If this all comes together, Cliff's opening date of June the third might not be so ludicrous."

Tom leant back in his chair. "It still sounds pretty ludicrous to me," he said, the gloom returning.

Cate smacked him on the back of the head. "Nonsense," she said. "Just you wait and see."

* * *

If it wasn't ludicrous to start with, it certainly became so within a week: Mrs Jacques fell down the stairs, twisting an arm, breaking a leg, and fracturing her hip into the bargain.

"I'm so sorry," she said to me when I visited, a few days later, laden with cake from Brandon (returned at last) and cards and presents from the Middletons.

"Sorry? You fell down the stairs. I'd blame Cliff's ill-fitting antique carpets."

She had smiled a little. "That may be, Ellis love, but now you're without a housekeeper."

I knew that. I nodded. I smiled. I patted her hand, comfortingly.

"And that means," she continued, "that you're also without anyone organising the changes in the house."

Somehow, my over-active organising brain had not clocked this. My hand-patting stopped abruptly. "What?"

She smiled, sympathetically. "Now you don't need to fret, love. It's all under control."

Clearly she had seen the panic rising, like the mercury in a thermometer. "Really?"

"Almost."

That one word sent a shiver down my spine. I tried to conceal my look of horror and not throw my hands up in the air, showering the invalid with brownies, cupcakes, and DVT socks. The first I struggled with. The second I managed. Just. I sat down slowly instead, depositing the booty by my chair. "So," I said, struggling for air. "What is it that is not under control?" The sentence was convoluted. Mari would have winced. I, however, didn't care.

"You know how we discussed how there needs to be information on the history and relevance of the rooms and their objects?"

My mind, already on overtime, whirred back through a thousand conversations, both formally in offices, and over pots of tea in the kitchens. The chat slotted in. Flapjacks had been involved. "Yes," I said slowly.

"That's what hasn't been done."

I gulped.

"The repairs that needed doing are in progress, furniture is off being seen to. I've taken care of all of the material aspects. It's just the information itself."

"Information?"

She winced. "I've been putting it off," she said after an awkward few seconds. "It'll take hours of conversations with Cliff, weeks of looking through the old notes, and much as he'll do a lot of that for you…"

"…he'll take twice as long as anyone else," I finished, trying to rub the growing headache away out of my forehead.

She winced some more. "I'm sorry, love," she said. "I should have started earlier with this work."

"It's fine," I said, a little distracted as I tried to work out exactly who I could spare from work to quiz Cliff, catalogue vases and contact _Antiques Roadshow_ experts.

"Maybe you could put Louise onto it…" she said slowly.

The headache grew. "No," I said. "She's got more work than she knows what to do with already."

"Cliff has a niece," Mrs Jacques said suddenly, "or maybe a cousin. Anyway, she emailed me a few weeks ago about something to do with needing experience for the jobs she wants to apply for, and whether she could volunteer at the house for some time."

"What? Really?"

She shrugged, a little awkwardly, given her cast. "You never know," she said. "Cliff's family have been interesting in the past. One only has to remember Uncle Roddy."

"One would rather forget Uncle Roddy," I replied. Uncle Roddy was famous in the family, not just for accidentally breaking a test-your-strength machine with his hammer blow, nor for occasionally dressing in his wife's clothes, rather that he could have had his pick of clothes from three different women, all of whom believed that they were married to him. Monogamously.

Mrs Jacques smiled. "I'll give you my password and you can check the email again yourself," she said. Secretively, she wrote it down on a scrap of Get-Well-Soon card envelope. "Here," she said, in a low, conspiratorial tone. "Keep it safe."

I pocketed it carefully. "I will," I said, patting it.

She nodded. "You can never be too careful. You just have to watch that film with Sandra Bullock. You know?"

My memory for names was never good. Famously, in fact. "_Miss Congeniality_?"

She frowned. "No, no. The one with the boat."

A nugget of genius appeared unto me. It felt faintly biblical. "_Speed 2: Cruise Control_," I said, incredibly proud. I'd have to tell Mari when I got home.

She frowned even more. "No."

Damn. "I'm afraid I don't know then, Mrs J."

"No," she said. "Never mind." She patted my hand again. "Thank you for all the gifts."

"It was nothing." It really was. Had I not found a card in the gift shop of the hospital, she would have had nothing from me. "It was Brandon who had provided all of the cake".

She smiled again. "Well thank you, and please thank young Brandon for me. It looks like a lovely chocolate sponge in there," she said, rattling a box.

* * *

"Chocolate sponge?" he exploded. "CHOCOLATE SPONGE?"

I sat down at the bar in the boat house heavily. "Yes?"

"This," he said, icily, waving a fork at the other half of what both Mrs J and I had thought was a chocolate sponge, "is not a chocolate sponge."

"Just for the record, I'm not sure that 'chocolate sponge' has ever been said so many times in such a short period of time. It has begun to make no sense."

"It _does_ make no sense, because this is not a chocolate sponge!" He was breathless after rattling out such an impressive tirade."

He paused for breath. I watched him slowly turn back to his normal colour. "Then what is it?"

"It's a flourless chocolate and almond cake."

"So, a sponge."

He gave me a long, hard look. "You, madam, are a Philistine."

I smiled. "Good use of 'madam' there."

He slumped onto the barstool opposite. "It's got masses of dark chocolate melted with coffee and rum and all held together loosely by eggs and ground almonds."

"Not to mention your God-like skills."

He raised an eyebrow. I think he may have detected my sarcasm. Just possibly.

"Who's the saint of cooks?" I asked. "I mean, because if there isn't one, maybe it could be you?"

"It's St Lawrence," he said, weakly.

"Pass me a fork. Who's St Lawrence?"

He gave me a look. Then he gave me a fork. "Some Italian martyr who was griddled to death."

"You're kidding."

He smiled, faintly. "Word is he said '_turn me over – I'm done on this side'_."

"You're sick."

He smiled a little more. "It's was Cate's favourite story of all time."

"You Morelands…" I said. I shook my head, and took a forkful of cake. After a second of ecstasy, I said, "you're a genius."

He smiled even more.

"I mean," I said, having swallowed and was therefore thinking a little more clearly, "mad, and sick, but a genius."

He picked up a fork, and tested it himself. "It _is_ good," he admitted. "Lucky old Mrs J."

"Wait," I said, "you gave an invalid in hospital, a cake made of alcohol and nuts, loosely bound with what appears to be not very thoroughly cooked egg?"

He carved himself another forkful and held the mound of cake up to eye level. "This," he said, "is perfectly cooked."

I raised an eyebrow at him.

"And it does have alcohol in it, yes, but when is it safer to eat slightly risky ingredients than when in hospital?"

I decided that, baking genius aside, he was impossible, so I fished Mrs J's laptop out of my bag, put it next to me on the bar, and turned it on.

"You didn't answer my question."

I looked at him, wearily. "First, I assumed it was rhetorical."

"Yeah, maybe…"

"And second, it was stupid." I took another mouthful of cake. Mrs J's computer was not the most impressive of models. It struggled to turn itself on, whirring a little alarmingly, and finally, when it did come on, it took an age, opening warnings, reminders that virus protection was now two years out of date, cluttering up the desk-top.

Brandon had given up a while ago annoying me. "Coffee?" he asked, eventually.

"Mm-hm."

He got up and started banging around the new stainless-steel appliances. I, meanwhile, systematically worked through the prehistoric layers of messages that had appeared, finally, eventually, unearthing Mrs J's desk-top and its large photo-wallpaper of her grandchildren. Slowly the internet chugged into life, spent a few minutes searching for a wireless connection, and after several failed attempts, it managed to find Brandon's boat-house hub, situated barely a foot from us. It was somehow both incredibly irritating, and calming.

"You still turning it on?" Brandon asked when he finally gave me my coffee. "What is it, steam powered?"

I sighed. "There's something quite relaxing about it, weirdly, you know? It's like, there's nothing I can do to make it go faster, and so I just have to wait."

He shook his head slowly. "You're neurotic."

"Possible."

Finally, the programme opened appeared. I negotiated my way past Mrs J's impossibly complicated password, then made executive decisions for her about certain emails waiting there. Brandon leaned over my shoulder.

"What," he said, "you _don't _think she wants that enlarged? That's very high handed of you." He smirked, then sashayed off to sort out the back rooms.

At last, I found the email.

_Dear Mrs Jacques, _it read.

_I don't know if you remember me, but my name is Lucy Steele, and I am Sir Radcliffe Middleton's cousin's daughter. I am twenty-four, I have an MA in Art History, and I am hoping to apply for work in museums and galleries soon, but I know that most will require some experience in the field. I was wondering whether I could do some work experience at the house, as you prepare to open next year. I have heard that Ellis Dashwood is now Estate Manager, and having heard of her work at Norland, I am eager to work with her. I am sure that I could be of great help to you, and it would be very useful for me._

_Thank you for your time._

_Sincerely, _

_Lucy Steele._

"She wants to work with me," I called. "Specifically."

"More fool her," came the morose reply from the store rooms.

I, however, couldn't help but smile. I preened a little, even. Mrs J's accident had been a minor setback. This, possibly, was a major step in the right direction.

* * *

Cliff confirmed my suspicions.

"She's lovely," he said, slightly vaguely. "I remember her from a few family gatherings. You remember, Di, don't you?" he said, as Diana dived into the kitchen, scrabbling through a drawer.

She looked up, confused. "Sorry, darling, what?"

"Lucy Stone."

"Steele."

"Right," he amended. "Steele. She was at our wedding, I think."

Diana frowned a little in concentration. "I don't…"

"No, you do," he said. "Rosamund's girl. Small. Dark hair. Or maybe red. Blonde, possibly."

"Cliff," I put in, carefully, "was that the _last_ time that you saw her?"

Diana paused, clearly realising that she was not going to be allowed to leave until the question was sorted out. "I don't remember seeing her since then," she said.

"Yes, maybe that was the last time. How old would she have been?"

"Three."

Diana smiled. "Well. I don't feel quite so bad for forgetting her. Ellis, darling, your mother and Maggie are coming up here for dinner again tonight. Would you and Marianne like to, as well?"

"I'm too busy, I'm afraid," I said, "and I've no idea where Mari is."

Diana paused on her way out, and sighed. "Off with Marcus again?"

"I'd imagine so."

Diana shook her head. "Poor Brandon."

"I know."

Cliff looked from his wife to me, and back again. "Poor Brandon?" he said. "Where is Marianne, and why should Brandon care?"

Diana rested a hand on her husband's shoulder. "You're delightfully clueless at times," she said, mildly. "Brandon has been pining for Marianne ever since she arrived. It was all looking very nice and refined until Marcus Willoughby turned up a week or two ago, right Ellis? Marianne has been head over heels for him, ever since."

"What?" Cliff looked completely lost.

"Yes, well, never you mind about that. Ellis, from Rosamund's Christmas letters it sounds like Lucy is still as delightful as she was when she was three. We certainly need the work doing, and she's willing to work for nothing. It sounds, to me, ideal. Email her back tonight, and tell her that we will accommodate her here with all her meals and everything she needs."

"Really?"

She smiled. "Absolutely."

"Ruddy marvellous," said Cliff, and he rubbed his hands together. "See Ellis," he said. "It's all coming together."

* * *

A few weeks later, and I was invited for dinner again at the house. Brandon had by then firmly packed October away under a landslide of Christmas cakes and jars of mincemeat. A week of sharp frosts turned the lake to ice, and Maggie and Nancy into budding skaters. The fact that they did not have ice-skates, nor were allowed any further out than a foot from the shore didn't seem to deter them. Tom had survived his first official dinner at the house, but now found himself invited to them all. We both groused over the invitation that Charlotte brought with her.

"Lighten up," she said, dropping onto the arm of Tom's chair. Automatically, he slid an arm around her. I swallowed, and wished I hadn't noticed. "It's just dinner. Lucy's due to arrive tomorrow, so Mum thought that she might as well meet everyone at once."

"That's a terrifying prospect if ever I heard one."

Charlotte grinned at Tom. "You'll get over it," she said. "You're both coming though. It's not a request."

Tom groaned. I thought about smacking my head on the desk.

"Come on," cajoled Charlotte. "One dinner. Dad seems to think that he's cooking it, so there's a good chance it'll be some obscure national cuisine. Nance's money is on Namibian."

"What even is Namibian cuisine?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I don't know. Fish? Do they even have a coast?"

"Yes," I said, taught after years of Maggie, asking me to quiz her on the countries of the world. This was how I also came to recognise the flags of the world.

"Anyway, it's worth a couple of hours out of your brutal work schedule," said Charlotte, with a brief, discrete glance at my hair, now starting to really need its highlights, and the general disarray of my clothes. She grinned. "It'll be fun."

Tom sighed. "I doubt that," he said, "but for you, Chaz, anything."

She grimaced then stood up. "You can start with not calling me 'Chaz'."

He got out of the chair slowly, and followed her to the door. "Really? You don't like it? Weird." He grinned down at her, before turning back to me. "That was everything, right?"

"Fine," I said. "See you later."

"See you at _dinner_."

I ignored her, and got back to work.

* * *

"Hair-dressers?" asked Cate over the counter at the _Delaford Kitchen_. "I don't know. I can ask around."

With a brief, but needed, trip out to the village, I had thought that I'd make the most of it, and chance an ability to stop looking like my current wreck. Cate, for all her normalcy, was in possession of a great haircut, short and swept across, certainly not done by the local lady who appeared to give everyone blue-rinses. "Well where do you get your hair done?"

She self-consciously automatically put a hand to the back of her neck, to the short, feathery ends. "She's away," she said. "Australia."

"Really?" I slumped into a chair.

"What's the rush?"

I grimaced. "Nothing, really. I just realised that I'm not looking at my best, and I'm aware of Charlotte and Mari always looking lovely, not to mention you…"

"Stop being so self-deprecating," she said, with a smile, "and have some cake." She passed me a plate and the cake tongs.

"It's fine. I should probably get going again."

She turned around, coffee pot in hand. "Look," she said, firmly. "I'm going to be honest. I don't think you are looking at your best, but I think that's almost entirely due to the fact that you're working yourself to death."

I took a second to realise that it was the first really honest thing I had heard in a while, and, unfortunately, it was probably true.

She poured me a cup. "You need to take a break every now and then," she said. She paused, and watched me as I processed her advice. "Have some cake," she said more gently, "and let someone else help out."

Brandon's excellent peanut butter and jam cupcake fogged my mind for a moment. It was better not to tell anyone. It could have been a little debilitating if anyone realised that they could take me down with the simple power of cake. My mind, however, slowly cleared. "It's nice of you to say, and you can't know how much I appreciate your honesty, but it's my work to do. Anyway, I've already got Lou, and Lucy's arriving today. We'll be fine."

"Ellis…"

I took a long drink of the scalding coffee she had poured me, and wrapped up the rest of the cupcake in a napkin. "Thanks," I said, wrapping my scarf around my neck. "See you soon?"

She sighed, but nodded.

* * *

Three hours later, I found time to dive into the shower. My hair was in serious need of a wash, and I had, after all, spent half the afternoon with Amos down in the deer park talking about everything from the cull to deer nuts to yesterday's _Rosemary &Thyme_.

"You're coming too, right?" I called through the roar of the water to Mari. Sometimes, thin walls were very handy.

"Yes," she called back. "Marc too. Diana thinks that he might be able to help Lucy a bit, or something."

I paused, midway through lathering up my hair into a cartoon-like tower. "How's it going?"

There was an answering pause. "Fine," came the guarded response. Suddenly, with a rush of chilly air, the bathroom door opened, and through the fog of the shower door, I saw Mari, sitting on the floor. "It's amazing, Ellis," she said, suddenly gushing. "He's perfect, and so handsome. He's just…" She sighed. "He's my ideal match. I couldn't have asked for anyone more perfect."

"Wow."

"Wow? That's all you can say?"

"What do you want me to say? I'm happy that you're happy. I don't really know the guy, but he seems nice."

"Nice?" came the scornful reply. "He's not nice."

"What?"

"Ellis!" came the scolding reply. "You _must_ know."

I answered with silence. I absolutely did not.

"Fine," she said eventually. "I'll talk in your language. He is my Heathcliff."

I paused mid-way through the second rinse. "Really?" I asked. "You have read it recently, right? I mean, I was in love with Heathcliff back then, but he's not exactly practical."

"PRACTICAL!" she exploded. "What kind of talk is that? And anyway, I wasn't meaning Heathcliff in the rough, wild, crazy sense. I meant as if to say…" She paused, gathering her thoughts. "He's everything."

I nearly swallowed a handful of suds. They had known each other a grand total of four weeks. It had taken me that long to work out how to use the washing machines at university. In all honesty, it had taken me six weeks, but that was a little too embarrassing to admit. "Everything?"

I saw through the misted door her shoulders, shrugging. "There's nothing I can do," she said. "I just, I think I love him."

I couldn't reply. I hadn't even used that word to myself, thinking about Ed. It had all seemed too complicated to even consider that possibility. Brandon, after all, had used the word, and now was nursing a bruised heart and ego to match. Just for a second, I envied that gutsiness, in unpacking ones heart and laying it bare. In that second, I considered telling Mari everything. The kiss. The silence of the following weeks. How Ed had all but apologised for it, trying to sweep it away and pretend it never happened. How much it hurt to think that he didn't want me, and never had. But then, of course, that was the danger of unpacking your heart. You might find that it is no good out, bare, and in fact, that you need to carry on. Better therefore, to have never opened it in the first place. I contented myself with my own pragmatism. I felt unfettered by foolish dreams. Except, of course, it is only in our dreams that we are free, and mine, just a few hours later, came crashing down, spectacularly.

* * *

I was glad, walking into the Drawing Room at the house, that I had made an effort. Mari had even unearthed her curling tongs, and had forbidden my customary, if now clean, ponytail. She had also very nearly blinded me, jabbing mascara wands near my face. I had, after a struggle, relented, and had to admit that I looked better than normal. It probably made a massive difference to not smell like a herd of deer, nor to be caked in so much mud as to blend in with them quite nicely. Mari, in a good mood after unburdening herself so spectacularly had supervised my dressing, relenting over the issue of jeans, but insisting on a white cowl neck that I had, for some reason, bought years ago, then relegated to the bottom of my drawers over issues of impracticality, and become quite unrelenting over black high-heeled boots which I decidedly couldn't walk in but, after all, that wasn't her concern. What was her concern, however, upon walking into the Drawing Room, was that Marc was not only already there, but was chatting animatedly to the only stranger in the room.

"Come and meet Lucy," said Diana, bearing down upon us.

Mari's lips set in a firm line. "I'd love to," she said, all clenched teeth and no sincerity.

She had nothing to worry about. As soon as we walked over, Marc looked up and grinned, somewhat debilitatingly. "Mari," he said, and stood. "Meet Lucy. Lucy this is Marianne and Ellis." He gave me a look. "I don't even know if that's not just a nickname, or…" He shrugged, his face still bright. "Sorry."

"It's fine," I said, "and it's Elinor, although I universally prefer Ellis."

Lucy smiled and held out a hand. "I'm pleased to meet you," she said. "I've already heard so much about you."

She was small, and delicate, although not exactly fragile: there was something indefinably tough about her, which certainly seemed to serve her well, facing weeks of working with Cliff.

I shook the offered hand, and smiled back. "Don't believe it all," I said.

Mari and Marc had sidled off to sit in the window seat. Lucy, however, seemed content to talk to me. "I've heard it from very reliable sources," she said.

"Really? Marc and I barely know each other, and Cliff is apt to exaggerate."

She paused. "No," she said eventually. "I meant…someone else." She raised her eyebrows, mysteriously.

"Who?"

She bit her lip. She narrowed her eyes a little, seemingly trying to grasp something about my character. Finally she said, "your brother is married to Francesca Ferrars, isn't he?"

I took a second to follow her onto her completely different topic. "Uh, yes," I said. "You know Fifi?"

"No," she said, "but I hope to meet her one day."

Only a very residual sense of decency stopped me from laughing in her face. "Really?"

"Yes." She toyed with a thick, dark blue pashmina, draped elegantly around her shoulders. She flicked a look up at me, and smiled.

The coyness of it all, if that was even a word, was starting to grate a little. "Well, she's my sister-in-law."

"Yes, I know."

She flicked me another look, loaded with completely incomprehensible meanings. I itched to shake it out of her. "So?" I eventually said, nudging her on.

"It's her brother that I know," she said.

I swear that my first thought, the only thought really, was, "Robbie?" Last time I had seen him he had been handsome enough, perfectly adept at working a tux very nicely, but a little too interested in his successes at work, his acquisitions at home, and the bottom of his champagne glass. It had fuelled a little too much leering for either Mari or my ease, so we had spent the evening avoiding him at all costs.

"Robbie?" repeated Lucy. "No, I…" She paused. "I meant Edward."

My stomach clenched briefly, just at the mention of him. "Oh?" I said, slowly. "How do you…?" I couldn't quite finish the question.

She glanced about her. It was a fair decision. Ruth was still staying. She appeared to have settled in until after Christmas. Her age, allegedly, meant that she couldn't possibly stay at home whilst building repairs and decorations were being carried out. Her age had not appeared to impede her hearing, or her ability to gossip. She was, however, on the far side of the room. Finally, Lucy looked back to me, content that no one gave a damn about what we were discussing. "We met at university," she said slowly. "He was in his last year. I was in my first."

Something about it all made me feel queasy. I very nearly asked her to stop. I wished, after all, that I had.

"He helped me with some of my studies, and I listened to him when he needed to talk." She shrugged. She smiled again, slowly, almost to herself. Then she looked straight back at me, steadily.

"We are engaged."

I nearly threw up.

* * *

**Thanks again friends for the reviews, the reading and the general cheerleading.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

My morning run had become my saving grace. Dark hours of sleepless nights, butted up against long, hard days of meetings, chasing people up, pleading with heritage boards and wrangling with Amos Rutherford over more problems with the deer. An hour, at dawn, with nothing but the scenery whipping by and the freezing wind in my face was somehow very therapeutic. It drove everything out of my mind, just for a bit. Christmas was fast approaching, but I was determinedly not thinking about that: the combination of the first year without Dad, not to mention working out the infinitesimal labour-intensive elements that had always made up our Christmases was sending a rising panic up my throat. Ed and Lucy loomed at the corners of my mind, but I squashed it away. I had only allowed myself one night to actually think about it. I had more than thought. I wallowed. My stomach had heaved, and my throat felt close to snapping it was so tight. Once Mari had turned out her light, I had got up again, gone to the bathroom, turned on the light, locked the door, then slumped against the wall. Jokes about our love lives, proddings against leaving marriage until it was too late, and quips about 'child-bearing years' had been flung across the room that night, batted at either side by Cliff and Ruth. Nancy and Mags had enjoyed it all immensely. Mum and Diana had both looked a little embarrassed for us. Tom looked downright terrified. Lucy, however, had sent meaningful glances my way at every comment. It had been a twist of the dagger, every time. I had made myself breathe slowly, deliberately trying to calm myself and not give in to the wrenching sobs that were hovering. Finally, just about to give in, and wallow like a pig in mud, there came a rap at the door.

"You nearly out?"

I stood up. I splashed my face with cold water. I opened the door, and found Maggie looking back at me, frowning a little.

"Are you all right?" she asked, showing uncharacteristic concern.

"I'm fine."

Her frown deepened at my automatic lie.

"I'm tired," I amended, "and I'm not really sleeping, but I'll _be _fine."

She nodded slowly. "Sometimes," she said, "when I can't sleep, I read a bit to stop all the things from joggling about in my mind."

I smiled, involuntarily.

"You want to borrow something?"

I was already feeling fragile. Maggie's thoughtfulness nearly took me out, right behind the knees.

"Oh I know," she said before I could answer. She disappeared into her bedroom, and reappeared, a few seconds of scuffling later, holding a book. The book Ed had sent to her. I gulped. "It's really good," she said. "I think you'll like it."

My automatic, daily answer of 'no, no, I'm fine, I can do it myself, I don't need that' failed on my tongue. I swallowed it. "Thank you," I said, and took the book, albeit gingerly. I had no intention of opening it. Anything that Ed had chosen would no doubt send arrows of self-doubt and deep _Dawson's Creek-_esque introspection through me, and any hope of sleeping would be dashed. Maggie had given me a quick, hard hug, then shut the bathroom door in my face. I stood there for a moment, baffled, then finally returned to my room, complete with matching rickety cabin bunks and a sister, snoring softly. I had slept badly. Eventually, when the sun struggled up, I gave up lying there and went for a run instead. Somehow, it left me feeling better. Like the Brontes, escaping up onto the moors, like Catherine Earnshaw with them, I too could escape and just run. Whether brilliant sunshine or driving sleet, I could still go. Whatever happened to me, the sun would come up every morning, and the tides still turn, and I could pound along the beach, fingers frozen, hair whipped in the salty wind, legs like jelly. Some days I found myself at the boat-house, and on some of those days Brandon came out to meet me, coffee and pastries in hand, like a burly, unlikely Saint Lucia. More often than not, we sat in silence. He didn't want to talk about Mari. I didn't want to talk about Ed. Both of us just needed each other and somehow, we got through those four weeks. Lucy, then, went home for Christmas, as did Marc. Neither of us said anything about it, but the first day after they had left, whilst Cliff was bemoaning the loss of someone who would not only listened to his stories, but also took notes, and Mari was sloping around looking morose, both of us, independently, started humming Christmas carols.

* * *

Christmas itself was raucous, to say the least. Tessa and Max were home, bringing new-found decibels to family meals. Ollie, somewhat wisely, remained away in Tibet, sending presents in lieu of a visit, much to his mother's disapproval. We, as well as Tom and his family, were all invited from Christmas Day right through to Boxing Day. From church on Christmas morning with Nancy and Maggie giggling with Max as they sung inappropriate words to the carols, to the loudest Christmas lunch I have ever known, right through a walk to the beach, and a chaotic present exchange, the day itself was not one for quiet introspection. I was grateful. I didn't want time to stop and think about Dad, or Ed, or Ed and Lucy, or any of the other thoughts that had been circling for weeks. We slunk back to our flat, turned the Christmas lights on, and sat in relative silence in front of _The Snowman_ before going to bed. The next day, Boxing Day, was equally insane. Tessa organised us onto something of a force march, five miles across the fields, picking up the younger Morlands along the way, and then back along the coast, sustained by rations of mulled wine in thermos flasks and half the Christmas cake. We arrived back just in time for lunch to find Diana scolding the dog for stealing and eating the Christmas cake. We instantly agreed to never speak of our walk again. Brandon's parents and grandmother had arrived by this point, so we all sat down to a feast of baked potatoes, bubble and squeak, and tons of cold Christmas left-overs, after which we lay in various vegetative states in front of _Muppet Christmas Carol. _It was weird, to say the least, but there was something incredibly comforting about the whole thing. The Middletons disappeared off a few days later to celebrate the coming of the New Year with Cliff's sister in Edinburgh. We were left with the rest of the left-overs, a Christmas hamper from the Morlands largely comprising of Brandon's Christmas cake and mince pies, and a massive stack of Christmas movies. With nothing to do, and work absolutely forbidden, we spent several days in complete relaxation, walking the Middleton's ageing dog across the beach, watching _It's a Wonderful Life_ and _Die Hard,_ and eating until we nearly burst. It left a little more time for thinking as well: it wasn't such a scary prospect when I had several empty days ahead of me and a newly acquired massive tin of hot chocolate in the cupboard. By New Year's Eve I had battled it out with myself. My New Year's resolution was set: I was going to stop thinking about Ed, stop obsessing about Ed, and stop contemplating how to kill Lucy and make it look like an accident. He had made his choice even before he met me. Whatever there had been between us was a misunderstanding, and he had probably done the right thing. Given the looks that Fifi had been throwing at me before we left, I could understand why they had kept it a secret: clearly she would disapprove, and clearly Ed didn't want to upset them. Not yet, anyway. So, my mind was made up, and as New Year's Day ticked into being, I took a deep breath of the New Year's air. I was now fine with Ed, fine with Lucy, and fine with the whole thing. I let out my breath into a misty cloud. I looked up to the stars and marvelled. Marvelled, that is, at my new found ability to lie to myself.

* * *

Winter came and went with disappointingly few frosts, and even fewer flakes of snow. There was mud and freezing rain from one end to the other. Tom was spending day after day slowly freezing out in the gardens, marshalling a team of eager volunteers who turned out, in spite of the weather, to fulfil Cate's detailed plans. Tom, however, had more than gardens on his mind. Charlotte had started the New Year as she meant to go on: with a modest but beautiful ring gracing her left hand. Diana was beside herself. Ruth, thankfully back in her own home, had sent letter after letter, complete with the family veil, a much flashier possible engagement ring and brochures to many honeymooning destinations. Charlotte had thanked her for the veil, taken a long, appraising look at the ring, and decided that hers was better, and put the brochures away. She, like her fiancée, was facing a busy spring. While her mother and step-father remained blissfully unaware of her occupation (having worked through several different professions already, they had given up trying to keep up) I, however, had weaselled it out of her. With Tessa's help, she had set up a small graphic design business via the internet. Her talents, therefore, were immediately indispensable. Within days of my discovery I had sketches of possible logos for the estate covering my walls.

"That horrible peacock?"

Charlotte grinned. "His name, as well you know, is Tavas."

"He has also taken against me."

She shrugged. "He hates everyone except Nancy. He is, however, massively photogenic."

I sighed and looked at the sheets in front of me again. The stylised peacock was beautiful. Behind it was the house in its very barest lines. It really would be a lovely logo. I grimaced. "Fine," I said.

"You like it?"

I sighed again. "I love it, despite its evil connotations. He _is _handsome." I slumped and put it to one side. "Well, good. Thank you. You've worked crazily hard."

She waved it all away. "It's nothing compared to how you work."

"I'm a machine, and I'm not planning a wedding."

Charlotte still blushed at every mention of the big day. It was charming. So much more so that Lucy who still took every opportunity to remind me that she was secretly engaged to Ed. Or Edward as she called him.

"How's it going?"

"All right," she said, slowly. "In fact, there's something that I wanted to run by you."

"Shoot."

"Not here," she said firmly. "It's not business. It's a family thing. I'm inviting you to dinner."

"What?"

She stood up and smiled. "I need to talk to you about the weddin., I don't think we should discuss it either on the clock or in business premises, and you _do_ need to eat, contrary to popular belief."

I had the strangest sensation of being had. "I…" I started to say, but she walked around to my side of the desk and hauled me out of my chair.

"Marvellous," she said, in a stunning imitation of her step-father, and marched me to the door.

* * *

Half an hour later I was sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by people.

"This feels like an intervention."

"Nonsense," boomed Cliff. "It's a handy coincidence."

"Really." It wasn't a question. It was a statement of utter disbelief.

He shot me an insincere smile. "Yes."

Mum and Diana walked in at that, dressed in smarter clothes than I had thought Mum owned. "Hello!" she said, all surprise. "I didn't expect to see you here!"

Mari's excellent care of Mum and Maggie had fallen by the wayside between dates with Marc and running the bookshop. I was, as usual, more than useless when it came to either remembering to stop work and eat, or remembering that others also need to eat. After one too many nights of burnt frozen pizza, Diana had taken pity on Mum and Maggie and had issued an open invitation to every dinner at the house. Whilst I had been getting by on Marmite toast and cup-a-soup, Mum and Maggie had found themselves firmly ensconced at the Middleton's table.

"I was ambushed," I said to Mum, and kissed her cheek. For all that it was an ambush, it was welcome. Apart from the week at Christmas I had barely seen her for months.

"Good," she said, and sat next to me.

Lucy and Mari walked in, chatting amiably, before Mari stopped dead. "What are you doing here?"

I smiled blithely back at her. "Being forced to stop work for a couple of hours."

She raised her eyebrows. "Impressive."

"You staying?"

"No," she said, fishing her phone out of her pocket, and checking the screen. "Marc's about to pick me up."

"Oh how lovely," said Lucy.

A muscle in Mari's forehead twitched. She had decided that since Marc and Lucy had bonded over art history and architecture, she should at least make an effort. It was fun to watch. Mari clearly couldn't stand her. Some time, one day, Mari would snap. I hoped, somewhat savagely, that I would be there when she did. I decided that for the moment, however, I would rise above it all. I turned back to Mum.

"Where have you been today?"

She leaned back in her chair and kicked off her heels. "Oof," she said. "The Barton and Knarescombe Historical Society's annual craft fair."

"Oh?"

She smiled. "Yes. It was all very interesting and worthwhile."

"You had a nice time?" I asked. I had a sudden flash-back to my conversation with Mari. I shot her a look. "I mean, all these new social things you're doing."

Mum smiled. "It's certainly nice to be busy again, sweetheart."

I smiled at her, then shot a triumphant look at Mari. Strangely, she was wearing an enigmatic smile. Her phone buzzed, and she glanced at it. She gave me another maddening look. "Marc's here," she said. "Thanks for inviting me for dinner," she added, turning to Diana. "Maybe another time."

She smiled back at Mari. "Bring him along sometime if you like. I know how much he enjoys poking around the house."

"Thank you," she said. "See you all later."

Her looks had been unfathomable. It irritated me. I was still mulling it over a few minutes later when Charlotte put a plate down in front of me.

"Ellis, love?" asked Mum, slowly, and coming to, I realised that not only had I been stewing for long enough for Charlotte to serve up, but also for everyone to sit, and start eating.

"Sorry," I said, and picked up my cutlery. Food has always been more fuel than anything else to me. That, I have suspected, is the reason that there could never be anything between me and Brandon: he finds my eating habits horrifying, in both my scanty meals, and the amounts of processing that the food goes through. Despite his revulsion, it had and has never stopped him from interfering. Soup was regularly left in Tupperware containers on my desk. Servings of pasta bake and shepherd's pie often appeared on the kitchen table. Brownies were shoved at me during meetings. It would appear that even large amounts of chocolate and sugar were, to him, better than packet soup. This all said, it took me a few hasty forkfuls to realise that this was more than just fuel. Heaped spoonfuls of cauliflower cheese oozed parmesan-goodness next to crispy potatoes, a pile of peas and a salad of vegetables of which, I was embarrassed to say, I recognised few.

"This is amazing."

Charlotte grinned. "Good."

"No, really amazing. You should jack in the graphic design business and become a chef."

"She was, briefly," said Diana.

"So," said Charlotte, blithely ignoring her mother, "the real reason we got you here."

"Besides making sure you got a decent meal in you."

I narrowed my eyes at Cliff, tongue-sticking-out being off the menu, what with eating.

Charlotte ignored him, as well. "Tom and I want to set a date."

I stacked myself up a really nice forkful of cauliflower, potato and veg, swirled around in the cheese sauce. "OK?" I asked, too busy with my food.

"We were thinking the first of June."

I nodded, incapacitated by my massive mouthful. Slowly, however, her words sunk in. I started to regret the huge shovelful in my mouth.

"Thish yerr?"

Charlotte looked confused.

Finally, I swallowed. "This year?" I asked again, after wiping my mouth.

"Yes."

I paused. It slowly dawned on me that this wasn't just an ambush to make me eat: it was also a clever way of disabling me from saying no to no doubt organising a wedding for two days before the big opening of the estate, which, handily, also fell on the one year anniversary of the accident. Cliff nodded encouragingly.

"I suggested it."

"Did you?" I'm not sure that he noticed my clenched teeth. Mum, however, laid a gentle hand on my knee.

"Look, Ellis," said Charlotte, passing the peas around again. "If it's a problem, we can go with another time. It just seemed like it could be a really good excuse to combine the wedding and the reception with a party to thank everyone for all their hard work. I mean, everyone working on this will be coming anyway. Why not use this to thank them, rather than taking off a whole other day to organise it, and find a night when everyone's free?"

I winced. Annoyingly, she had a point.

"Also," she said, waving the serving spoon at me, "all the work will be done by then. There's nothing more you can do. You might as well kick up your heels and serve as a bridesmaid."

I started to nod. Except then I actually processed what she had just said.

"Are you kidding?"

She frowned. "About what?"

"Please say you are."

She shook her head, grinning. "Come on," she said. "I've known you forever. And, you knew about Tom first."

Diana's head shot up. "What?"

"Only just before you, Mum," said Charlotte, quickly.

"It was matter of hours," I put. Why I was helping Charlotte, I didn't know.

Diana narrowed her eyes.

"Anyway," said Charlotte. "What do you say?"

I dropped my fork. I sagged in my seat. "You really want that date?"

"And you."

I cursed, silently. Charlotte gave me a winsome smile. I cursed again. "Fine," I said, eventually, "but I get to choose my dress."

Charlotte grinned, picking up the serving dish. "Your wish is my command," she said, and ladled me out another massive serving.

* * *

As much as Mari's smiles had been enigmatic, later that night they were downright exuberant. With so much going on, I had taken Tom's advice ("now would be a good time to start drinking") and unearthed the whiskey. Somehow, the combination of alcohol and impossible odds had merged to create a perfect sleeping atmosphere. That was, until Mari climbed into my bed at midnight, and sat on my feet. I thought about kicking her. Instead, I rallied together all of my loving older sister intuition, and said, albeit sleepily, "are you all right?"

She bounced a little. I instinctively grasped the sides of the bed. It was, after all, poorly constructed. "Yes," she said. "I think…maybe…I think he's the one."

"Great," I said, not even managing to feign excitement. "You told me that about two months ago."

I heard her scoff in the darkness. "_The _one, Ellis. The one I can give myself to completely. The one who…"

"Are you talking about sleeping with him?"

Silence replied to me.

"Mari, are you serious? What happened to waiting until you're married and it being the most special thing ever, and…"

"Why wait?" she asked. "Why bother, when I know we'll be together forever?"

I struggled to clear the fog of sleep. I snapped on my bed-side light to help. I squinted in the sudden brightness, but seeing her face, a bright map of hopes and expectations, helped enormously.

"What are you saying?"

She shrugged.

"Are you engaged?" Clearly my tone was a little too scolding for her. She frowned a little.

"What is it to you? You're never around these days anyway."

"Are you?"

"Around?"

"Engaged!" I replied, exasperated.

She smiled slowly. "No. Not yet. Although we are all but…" She smiled again.

I passed a weary hand over my face. "And you're planning on sleeping with him?"

She pulled a face. "I'm not some teenager making plans to get it off at prom."

"You know what I mean."

She shrugged again. "It could happen."

I slumped against my pillows.

"What?" she asked, looking at me, hard. "Are you jealous about my doing it first?"

"_Doing it_?" I cringed. "No. I'm just…" I took a breath. "Worried, I suppose. You will be careful?"

She rolled her eyes. "Yes Mum. I learned all about it at secondary school."

I tried to kick her. She, unfortunately, was still sitting on my feet. "I meant with yourself. With your heart," I amended.

She began to roll her eyes again.

"Don't," I said. "It's a big thing. Don't treat it lightly."

She smiled a little. "I won't," she said. "I thought you'd be clinically practical about it all."

I pulled the duvet tight around my shoulders. "There's no point. Love isn't practical. Neither, I might add," I said, stifling a yawn, "is Heathcliff, so if you're still on that scheme, I'd advise that you get off."

She frowned. "You're so contrary."

I shrugged, further under the covers. "I shouldn't worry. The guy wears reading glasses and is fascinated by architecture. I think he's more of an Edgar."

She threw a cushion at me. "Take it back."

"Let me go to sleep!"

She shook her head, and climbed out of my bed. "Edgar Linton," she muttered as she traversed the maze of boxes to her bed. "Honestly."

* * *

"Who is Edgar Linton?" asked Maggie over the Cheerios the next morning. Despite Mari's late night confessional, I had still slept pretty well. My old mantra therefore seemed to be right again: running was all very well, but sleep was better. It was a nice consequence of actually sleeping, that I also got up at the same time as my family, and had breakfast with them.

"I'm surprised you're here sweetheart," Mum had said. "After all of Charlotte's revelations last night I would have thought that today of all days, you'd be already at work."

I had shrugged. "Me too. I think the potential work short circuited my worrying tendencies."

Mari had scoffed. "That, and the whiskey. It was still out when I got home."

"What time did you get in?" asked Mum.

"Yes Mari, when?"

She had scowled at me. "It's ruddy Edgar Linton all over again."

"Mari, language!"

Maggie frowned. "Who is Edgar Linton?"

"A character in _Wuthering Heights_," said Mum. "He's supposed to be very good looking, and very gentle and loving…"

"All good character traits," I said, over my coffee.

"…although a bit weak and dispirited," she finished.

Mari smiled at me, smugly. "See?" she said. "He's not like Edgar."

"Who isn't?" asked Maggie.

"Marc."

"No," said Mum, "thank goodness. And he's not like Heathcliff, before you try and say that Miz."

Mari scowled.

"He's far too sensible for that."

Mari's scowl cleared a little.

"Bring him round to dinner one night," Mum said. "I don't know him half as well as I'd like."

Mari's expression dropped right into wary. "Really?"

"Yeah, Mari," I said, enjoying myself much more than was reasonable. "He barely knows my name."

She rolled her eyes. "Are you going to cook?"

"Hell, no."

"Ellis," Mum said, warningly.

"You can," I said, back to Mari. "Show him your domestic goddess side."

"Is that the one with big boobs who licks chocolate off her fingers?"

"Maggie!" said Mum, shocked. "Honestly. You girls should be a better example for your sister." She paused. "And yes. It is."

* * *

Marc, to his credit, was delightful. He tucked his glasses, which made him more, not less attractive, into the collar of his shirt, and then he skimmed our bookshelves, exclaiming over the books that we shared, asking to borrow ones that he didn't have. He drained the heavy spaghetti pot. He laughed at Maggie's stories of adventure and daring, and defected to Mum over everything. He did appear to be perfect. We were pretty certain of it when, after dinner, he then insisted on doing the washing-up.

"You're a guest!" we said without much conviction.

He had grinned and shooed us away, before taking his place at the sink, Mari leaning in beside him to dry the dishes.

Mum and I exchanged glances then followed Maggie over to the sofas. We weren't ones to complain when not having to wash or dry up. Mari had trained Mags well, but I suspected that she was happy to have a few moments of just them in cosy, domesticated bliss. It all looked very normal. It tugged at my heart. I wasn't jealous about the prospect of her sleeping with him. Despite a good evening, I was still unsure about it. I was, however, incredibly envious of their close, easy comfort. It was how it had felt with Ed, before. I missed it right then, horribly.

Ten minutes of sloshing and clanging and laughter later, Mari and Marc brought over a tray of coffee and the fancy chocolates which Marc had brought with him. For us. Making him rise even higher in our estimation.

"So," said Mum, all fake ease, "how much longer do you have working on your phD?"

"A while longer yet," he said, wrapping elegant hands around a steaming mug, and settling next to Mari on the sofa. "I've got a lot of research to do. A lot more houses to see."

"I'd think you'll be a lifetime if you spend this long at every house."

Mari blushed, but Marc grinned right back at me. "Yes, so would I," he said. "I'd better try not to meet beautiful girls at all of them."

He slung his arm around her shoulders, and, all embarrassment aside, she leant in next to him. "I'd think that you might find more competition in places that had any kind of social life," she said, grinning up at him.

"There was Brandon," put in Maggie, eager to join in.

"Maggie!" scolded Mum, but it was too late. Maggie's slip up hung, silently, for a long moment.

Marc didn't look too perturbed. "Really?" he asked, smirking back down at Mari.

"No," she said, "it was nothing." For all her smiling, shrugging and rolling eyes, her ease did not in any way match Marc's.

"Anyway," put in Mum. "It was quite a while ago. I'm sure that if there had been anything, it is well behind everyone now."

I wasn't sure that Mum was really helping much, but Mari nodded.

"He's older than you though, isn't he?" said Marc. "I mean, maybe you, Jill, should have a crack at him?"

She giggled. I didn't even know that Mum could giggle, but Marc, with his cheekbones and his smile and his charm had drawn one out of her.

"No?" he asked. "I think you'd make a lovely pair."

Mum giggled again.

"I think you're too good for him." He turned to me, raising his eyebrows and, grinning. "Maybe Ellis, instead. What do you say? You fancy a scruffy cook with no discernable sense of style or how to use a razor."

"Oh but we would have made a lovely pair?" asked Mum, laughing.

Marc shrugged. "I thought you could do with slumming it for a bit. Shake it up a bit Jill."

She giggled. Again.

"And it's not slumming," I said, a little indignant for Brandon. "He's a great guy."

"I like him," put in Maggie. "He went to look at those intruders that time. Except, of course, that was Ed…"

"And who's Ed?" asked Marc, clearly in the swing of it. He turned back to Mari. "Not some other spurned lover of yours?"

I took the decision to stand up, too fast, it turned out, for my coffee, which slopped over my hand. I didn't care. "Well," I said, quickly. "I could do with getting some work done before I turn in. It was nice to see you Marc."

He smirked, all too knowingly. "You too."

"You're going to work?" said Mum. "We have a guest, El."

"It's fine," said Marc. "You go."

I turned, relieved, to the door, and had it open and ready.

"We'll discuss who this mysterious Ed is, and how he's pining for Mari."

"Oh, he's not pining for Mari," said Maggie, helpfully. "It's Ellis…"

I slammed the door on my way out for good measure.

* * *

"You're working too hard."

I was pouring over spread-sheets and notes, glad of the company but not terribly responsive.

"Ellis?" he said again. "You're looking thin, too."

I looked up and scratched the bridge of my nose, absentmindedly. "You're looking…old."

Brandon rolled his eyes at my smile. "_That's_ fast getting old." He paused. "You're looking _too _thin."

I put down my fluorescent orange marker. "I really don't know how that could possibly be true," I said. "You force feed me brownies half the day."

He shrugged, then unceremoniously dropped a fudge-coloured slab of cake off the spatula, next to my papers, landing on the wooden surface with an almighty _whump_. I looked at it. Then I looked at him.

"It's a blondie," he said, then turned away to the sink.

* * *

He appeared in my office the next day with a Tupperware box full of the rest of the blondies, too sweet by half for general consumption, but just right for an estate manager already hopped up on caffeine.

"I have news," he said, dropping into a chair

I raised an eyebrow. "And you want to share it?"

He smiled, slowly. "I know. Weird. Just hear me out though."

I settled back in my chair, wrested the blondies from his grasp, and prised open the box. "Go on," I said, through a mouthful of cake.

He shook his head at me, yet again bemused by my eating habits. Then he came to. "I got the house."

"WHAT?"

He smiled a little more, a sliver of pride creeping into his voice. "I sold my flat for much more than I thought I would, so there was just enough to offer it straight out for the house."

"Cash in hand?" I said, contemplating another blondie. "That must have been tempting for them."

"Exactly," he said. "It got sorted out seriously fast."

"And you got the house?"

"With all its six bedrooms and Aga and pond and dodgy wiring." He grinned. "At last, there's somewhere for little Mimi and Bruno to play."

I smiled back. "I think I named your hypothetical son Jasper, but I guess you'll have some say in it. Did you come clean to the estate agent?"

He leaned over and stole a blondie. "What, that you were not in fact my wife, nor were you pregnant?"

I grinned at the memory.

"Yes," he said, dusting off his hands. "She told me to make a play for you anyway."

"Wow. And is that actually why you're here?"

He grinned, albeit briefly. "No. I'm here to invite you to my effortlessly cool house-warming party that Cate is insisting I throw."

"But of course."

He rolled his eyes. "I think my parents have cried off it, but Jim, Cate, will be there, Tom and Charlotte, Lou if she's around, Lucy maybe…"

I winced.

He raised his eyebrows. "Or not?"

"It's fine," I said. "I don't mind."

Brandon nodded. Then he paused, awkwardly. "Is…are…is Marc still around?"

I smiled a little, despite myself. "No, not right now. He finally got permission to go somewhere in Scotland for research, and what he thought would be a week in a holiday cottage is now two weeks in the guest wing."

Brandon nodded. "Wow. So…uh…is Mari still here? She didn't go too?" He cringed.

"No," I said, putting him out of his misery quickly. "She's really crabby about it. He sprung it on her just yesterday and now he's already gone."

He nodded again, slowly. "You think she'd want to come? Take her mind of missing him or something?"

I passed the blondies back to him. "You really are a nice guy."

He smiled a little, shrugging. "Or a pushover."

"Hey, join the club!"

He smiled again. "So you guys will come?"

"Sure."

"OK." He stood up. "No, keep them," he said as I tried to give him the cake back. "See you tomorrow."

* * *

"This can't be the right place," said Mari, studying the map. "It must be wrong."

"Nope." I turned off the road and into the drive where, already, several cars were parked.

"But this is…" Mari got out of the car, still entirely disbelieving. She frowned. She looked at the map. Then she sighed. "This is ridiculous," she muttered. "We might as well go back."

I slammed the door. She had been complaining through the whole journey. Twenty minutes of solid moaning, preceded by half an hour of grumbling while I dressed. "If you don't want to be here…"

Mari shrugged. "It's fine," she said. "I'm just not sure that this is right."

"It is."

We spun around to find Brandon walking up the drive, carrier bags in each hand.

He smiled, slowly. "Cate and I had our wires crossed. Thankfully, there's a little shop just down the road." He walked past us. "You coming in?"

"Sure," I said, and followed him past the pond and round the drive. Mari followed, slowly.

In the early evening light, the house looked beautiful. Not the grand old dame of Barton Park, nor the cool elegance of Norland, Brandon's new house was altogether more home than house. Budding creepers twined up the front of the house which seemed to shimmer, the rising moonlight bouncing of the grey wood shingles. Lights shone a golden glow from the long windows. Animals chirruped from the undergrowth and something splashed in the pond. Some soft music was coming out of the house, drowned out at regular intervals by laughter.

"It looks even more beautiful that I remembered," I said, and elbowed Brandon in the ribs. He looked down and smiled at me.

"Good." He looked back up at Mari, who was stock still. "You all right?"

She took a breath. Then she sighed. "Marc's always talking disparagingly about these houses with no symmetry or classical features and…" She paused and frowned. "There's no reason why it should be so…so lovely, but it is." She sighed again, her eyebrows drawn together in confusion.

Brandon pursed his lips. I thought for a second that he was annoyed: she had, after all not just mentioned Marc, but said that his house had no symmetry or redeeming features, but then, slowly and quietly he said, "_There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect._"

Mari looked up at him. "Who said that?"

"G.K. Chesterton," he said and then paused, frowning. "Uh…_Men do not quarrel about the meaning of sunsets; they never dispute that the hawthorn says the best and wittiest thing about the spring."_ He paused. "Or something like that."

Mari smiled. "I like that."

He smiled back. "Me too."

Then he led the way inside, and I was left speechless.

* * *

**Thank you reviewing friends, once again. I greatly appreciate it. You could be forgiven for thinking that I didn't care, given that it's been a month since I last updated, but things have been hectic and then I went on holiday, so here I am. Back, rested, having finished reading Northanger Abbey again and enjoying Wimbledon. This post is deeply un-seasonal. Sorry about that. We'll be back to summer again in a twinkling. Just hang in there.**


	8. Chapter 8

To** HarmonyLover **and anyone else who patiently waited**: **here it is. Sorry it took so long.

* * *

**Chapter Eight**

Cate looked exhausted.

"I was going to quiz Brandon as to what kind of witchcraft he used to get so unpacked so quickly, but from your face, I'm guessing that I need look no further."

She grinned at me. "I enjoyed it."

I sat down next to her, on the stairs, and handed her a G&T. "And you say that _I _work too hard."

She shrugged. "It was pretty easy. And I had taken a few days off from the garden plans. I was starting to dream about massive formal hedges trying to eat me."

"Easy?" I said, incredulously. "It looks like he has lived here for ages."

She shrugged again.

"Cate, there are pot plants in the entrance hall."

She grinned over her glass. "I was having a paranoid moment."

"Moment?" muttered James on his way past.

Cate scowled at his retreating back, but then continued. "They're all air-filtering plants. You never know with these old houses…" She grinned. "It's stupid, I know, but I am a bit of a hypochondriac."

"They filter the air?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I mean, largely from by-products of the oil and coke industries…"

I spluttered.

She grinned. "…but you can never be too careful."

I shook my head at her slowly. "No," I said eventually. "I guess you can't." I sighed. "Your paranoia aside, it's still pretty impressive."

She smiled.

"You should see my bedroom. It's one sea of boxes."

Cate grinned. "You should see three of the bedrooms upstairs, bereft of furniture, but stacked high with five million boxes of frying pans."

I wouldn't be dissuaded. "There are photos on the walls," I said. "I don't even know where my photos are."

Cate stood up with a groan. "That," she said, leading me into the living room, "is because Brandon, while being massively low maintenance over pretty much everything else, is very specific about his kitchen and about his photos."

"I could have guessed about the kitchen," I said, following her. The room was empty, save for Mari, who was sitting on the window seat, scrolling through something on her phone.

"You're not with the others?"

She shrugged. "I don't know them all that well."

"What about Charlotte and Tom?"

"They're not here yet."

There was something of the petulant teenager about her that grated. Cate, however, didn't seem to notice. "Oh, I'll introduce you to everyone," she said. "I was just showing Ellis Brandon's photos." She stopped in front of the chimney breast where, above the mantelpiece, hung four framed photographs. "The family, you know," she said, gesturing to the large group shot, people crammed in on the sofa, the cat wrestled into sitting still. "His restaurant and all his kitchen staff," she said of one with Brandon standing centrally, proudly surrounded by young people, smiling broadly and wearing chef's whites. "Those are his best friends from school," she said, pointing to one of a considerably much younger Brandon, laughing with a pretty girl and a guy with a brilliant smile, "and that," she said, pointing to the last of the set, "is their daughter. Brand's god-daughter." It was a beautiful black and white close up of a small, very pretty baby, her nestled in a large hand.

"They're lovely," I said, looking at them closely. "No wonder he wanted them all up."

James appeared in the doorway. "What are you all doing in here?"

"Snooping," said Cate, simply.

He smiled a little. "Fair enough. Dinner's ready."

"Good," said Cate, drinking the last of her G&T. "I'm starved."

I followed her out of the room. Mari, however, lingered in front of the photos.

"Is she all right?" asked Cate in an undertone.

I shrugged. My big-sisterly concern was waning. "No idea. She's a complete mystery to me these days."

A frown fluttered between Cate's eyebrows. "You're sure? It could be something important."

I raised an eyebrow.

She grinned. "Sorry. Perpetual paranoia strikes again." She sighed. "Come on. Dinner's probably getting cold."

* * *

Any worries about the warmth of the dinner were nothing to my worries about the warmth of myself. "Eating outside? Are you mad? It's February!"

Brandon shook his head, solemnly. "I've got a very fancy veranda out there. Cate spent all afternoon hanging up fairy lights in it. The barbeque and the patio heaters have done a very nice job of warming it up. That," he said, with a brief flicker of a smile, "and I haven't quite got round to reassembling my table yet."

"You put up photos, but you don't put up a table?"

"Lighten up Dashwood," he said, slinging an arm around my shoulders. "You have gloves. I have hot soup on the Aga and sausages on the barbeque, and…" he continued as I started to protest, "…even some of those manky vegetarian sausages for you."

I scowled at him. He pushed me out of the door. "Go and introduce yourself to everyone."

* * *

As it turned out, I knew most of the people already. A few of his friends had come down from London, but otherwise most people were from around Barton. Charlotte and Tom arrived half way through serving out, and then our table was complete, if a little chilly. While still reserved, Mari started to thaw out. She chatted to a few people. She even cracked a smile occasionally. She managed to not mention Marc too many times, and actually look, occasionally, like she was enjoying herself. That was until the subject of romance cropped up.

"You are dead inside," said Charlotte, whacking Brandon over the back of the head.

"_The Notebook_ is a girls' film," said Tom. "Guys don't get it."

"Don't feel bad," I said, warming my hands on my mug of soup. "I don't get it either."

"WHAT?"

I shrugged. "I'm sorry. It's all emotional manipulation and Wayne Duck, and…"

"Who?"

Mari rolled her eyes. "She means Ryan Gosling. She has a small and infuriating mental block on all actors."

Charlotte turned to her. "Mari, come on, you're on my side right? _The Notebook?_ Saddest film _ever_."

"Not really…"

Brandon smirked. Tom laughed. "See, Charlotte, not everyone goes in for massive emotional manipulation. Now _The Iron Giant_ on the other hand…"

She turned to her fiancée, disbelievingly. "_The Iron Giant? _Are you serious?"

"Are you?" he asked right back. "It's beautiful and heart-breaking when he goes all, "_Superman?" You're_ the one dead inside." He grinned as Charlotte rolled her eyes. "A bit," he amended, and pulled her close to him.

"I don't find that many films make me cry," I said, thinking it over.

"Me either," said Cate.

"That's because we trained you out of it good and young," said James.

She grinned. "You mean scared me out of it." She paused. "That said, I remember you both crying in _Dead Poet's Society._"

Brandon shrugged. "It's all very sad. _Carpe Diem_ and all that…"

I was shocked back nearly eight months, to the days after Dad's death when we were planning his funeral. "You don't want _that_ on the headstone, do you?" Mum had said. I wished, now, that we had. I looked up to see Mari glancing at me. There was a glint of a smile, but then it disappeared again.

"Anyway," said Brandon. "I distinctly remember you weeping through films. _Beaches_ and something else…"

"I did not cry in _Beaches_," said Cate, indignantly.

"My girlfriend does, all the time," said one of Brandon's London friends, ruefully.

"Well I do not. It, like _The Notebook,_ tries to make me cry with massively emotional tragic death, and the only films which that works for are _Little Women, The Lion King _and _Anne of Green Gables, _ and that last one's not even a film."

"She has a point," put in Mari, suddenly.

"See?"

"A lot of writers clearly don't understand loss, and that it's more than just being sad that someone's gone. It's all about this hideous, potent mixture of failings and fear and loneliness and betrayal."

I swallowed. Clearly I also didn't understand loss. She was so right, and it was stirring up everything that I had worked so hard to tamp down. Everyone around the table was listening hard. Brandon, however, was not watching. He was staring, unseeing, out at some point in the garden.

"You know, it's why films like _An Affair to Remember _and _Brief Encounter _are so sad. It's all about yearning and denied hopes and…" She looked up just as Brandon turned back to the table. She paused, her eyes locked with his. The rest of us watched, transfixed. "Well," she finished, lamely. "It's just so sad."

"I'll say," said Cate, breaking the brief but awkward silence.

Tom shrugged. "I still don't get it."

Charlotte shook her head slowly at him.

"That, Thomas, is because you are not an old romantic like Mari and I, right?" Cate said, turning back to Mari.

Mari was fiddling with her cutlery. She paused. "No," she said, eventually. "And it's 'Mari and me'." She stood up, abruptly. "Excuse me," she said, then walked back into the house.

* * *

There was a heavy silence. Charlotte grimaced. "Well," she said. "I'm going to explore the gardens. Tom?"

"It's dark!"

"Oh well. Marty? Dan?"

Somehow, Charlotte dragged everyone away from the table apart from the Morlands and me.

I rubbed the back of my neck, suddenly exhausted. "I'm sorry, Cate."

She looked up, worry marking every line in her face. "No, I am. I shouldn't even have started the conversation in the first place."

"It clearly stirred up a lot," said Brandon slowly.

Cate made to stand up. "Should I go and apologise?" She nodded to herself. "I think I should."

"You will do nothing of the kind."

James raised his eyebrows.

"Ellis…" started Brandon.

"No. Cate did nothing wrong in the slightest. She was being lovely, drawing Mari into the conversation and trying to make her feel like one of the group, and all Mari did in return was sulk, bitch and moan."

"That's not fair," said Brandon, gently.

"I really should go and talk to her," said Cate again. "It was my fault and…"

"No!" I said, more forcefully than ever before. "You've done nothing to apologise for. She should be apologising to all of you for ruining such a lovely evening."

Cate looked miserable. James stood up, and hand on her shoulder. "I'll go and check that she's all right," he said. "Catie, can you go and find out if anyone lurking in the garden wants pudding?"

She nodded, and slipped off the veranda into the gloom.

I sighed, and leaned back, my palms pressed against my eyes.

"Drink?" asked Brandon, quietly.

"Only if there's a lot of alcohol and very little of anything else."

I heard a small laugh. Then, "you're driving aren't you?"

I dropped my hands. "_She_ can drive. She's already ruined this evening. The least she can do is enable my fast-track to alcoholism."

Brandon smiled. "Come on," he said, and led the way back into the kitchen. He manhandled me to right in front of the Aga. "Lean there," he said, then he turned away, filling the kettle.

"Why here, particularly?"

He reached past me, lifting up the hotplate cover, and putting the old kettle down. "It's the warmest place in here," he said, simply, "and you Dashwoods get crabby when you're cold." He stood next to me against the Aga. "I should have remembered that."

"What, before you made us all eat outside in February?"

He shrugged, smiling a little. "It's unseasonably warm!"

I nudged him in the ribs. Above the Aga was another mantelpiece with picture frames littering the surface. One contained a very similar shot to one in the living room, except it was taken from further back, revealing that the hands holding Brandon's god-daughter were, in fact, his own.

"How old was she there?" I asked, looking at it.

He took the photograph down. "Ten days," he said, eventually. His expression had become strained. He frowned. "Cate told you?"

"That she's your god-daughter? Yeah."

He handed the photo to me. "No more than that?"

I shook my head.

He sighed. I really wasn't sure that there was going to be any more to it, when suddenly he said, "I was in love with her mother."

"I…uh…"

He shrugged. "We were all best friends at school- me and Graham and Libby. I was head over heels for Libby, but I didn't say anything for years." He paused, and screwed his face up. "Then I told Graham how I felt and he thought that it was more like a competition." He paused again. Then, quietly, he said, "he won. By the time that we left high school, Libby was mad for him- crazy about him."

"Brandon…" I said, slowly, a hand on his arm.

He looked down at me, and smiled. "It was nearly seventeen years ago, Ellis. I'm all right with it now."

"But still…"

He smiled again. "It probably would have been so different had Graham and I not both had to move away."

I frowned.

"My aunt had found me a job in a kitchen, so I was living with her and working there, and Graham's parents had got him into this fancy private school to do his A-levels. They planned for him to go to Oxford and get into the government or something." He sighed. "I came home for Christmas, planning to catch up with them both, and found out that Graham's family had moved to be closer to his school, largely, it turned out, because Libby was pregnant."

"What?"

He nodded. "Her parents were horrified, and his parents thought that they'd be humiliated. They all turned their backs on her until she could come home with the full assurances that there would be no child."

"Are you kidding?"

The kettle started to whistle. He didn't seem to hear it. "No," he said, slowly. "And by the time she had realised that she was pregnant, it was too late to do anything about it."

I felt, suddenly, sick. "Do anything?"

His expression had turned thunderous. "She was desperate. Desperate and lonely and scared. I came home to find that my parents had taken her in: she was sleeping in my room, and I was relegated to the sofa."

"What about Graham?"

Brandon suddenly snapped to. He turned and picked up the kettle, poured it into the teapot, then put it back. He took a breath. "He was scared too. He didn't find out for a while, and once he did it just terrified him. He had his parents and his dreams and _their_ dreams and then, suddenly, they were all going to come crashing down. He just kept his head down and got on with it."

I scoffed.

"I don't entirely blame him," he said, slowly. "Not now."

I nodded, not sure why or that I understood. "So what happened?"

Brandon didn't say anything for a moment. He made the tea. He passed me a mug. His he left on the side. He crossed his arms over his chest and frowned, leaning against the dresser. "She…there were complications."

"No…Brandon…"

He looked up at me and let out a long breath. "She died giving birth to her daughter. Her parents were heart-broken. They'd arrived in time and said how sorry they were, but…well…" He swallowed, hard. "They named her Elizabeth, after Libs. They call her Beth."

I swallowed too. "They made you her god-father?"

He nodded slowly, smiling a little. "Yeah. It felt like one hell of a responsibility when I was sixteen. It made me start going to church again, just so that I could impart some kind of wisdom onto her."

I smiled. "She must be, what, nearly seventeen now?"

He nodded, suddenly a little more guarded again. He reached over for his tea. "Yeah," he said. A smile flicked back across his face. "She's so like Libby," he said. "She swings between loving things and hating things with very few stops in between. There are no grey areas with Beth." He laughed a little, to himself. "It's exhausting."

"I'm sure that you're a good god-father."

He smiled again. "I'm not sure of that at all…but thank you."

We settled into companionable silence, standing in the kitchen, sipping hot tea, until the others clattered in, cold from the garden and ready for Brandon's apple crumble, and demanding jugs of custard. I accepted my bowl with eager hands, and made light conversation, but really, I was still churning it all over. Brandon knew what real loss was. He knew what it was to have hopes and expectations, and to see them crumble. To see all of your worst fears rise up. Somehow, I liked him even more.

Mari and I barely talked on the way home. I was still fuming. Fuming, but unsettled about everything that Brandon had told me. I was perfectly aware that there probably weren't many people who knew what had happened. I felt honoured that he considered me a good enough friend that I should know, although knowing how he felt about Mari, and knowing that she did not know left me even more unsettled. It was all a little too neurotic for me that Brandon and I, pining away for other people, were both treating each other to all the confidences and trust which should have been shared with others. Except, of course, Mari was too interested in Marc to notice Brandon anymore, and Ed was entirely unavailable. I supposed that, despite the weirdness of it all, it was better than a lonely and desperate nothingness.

* * *

_Three months later_

"Charlotte?"

"_Ellis."_ Her tone was not exactly welcoming.

"I'm so sorry."

She sighed. I winced. "_It's fine_," she said. "_I never really imagined that you'd make it. I expect that you're not phoning to tell me that you are, in fact, just pulling into Paddington."_

"Uh, no," I said, wincing some more. I was absolutely not pulling into Paddington. I was standing, some four hours away, in the middle of the deer park. "I'm so, so sorry. I got stuck in a meeting that somehow between us, Lou and I had forgotten. Google calendar failed us, and then I got distracted, and before I knew it…"

"_You weren't in your car, on the way to Totnes."_

"I'm so, so…"

"_Yes,"_ said Charlotte, sounding a little less annoyed. "_I know_." She sighed. "_Mari knows your dress size?"_

I paused. "Probably."

There was a thoughtful silence.

"Charlotte? You still there?"

"_Was that an 'I've been working so hard and skipping so many meals that I've probably dropped three dress sizes probably' or an 'I've barely talked to my sister for an age, let alone discussed dress sizes probably'?"_

I winced yet again. "A mixture?"

"_You really need to sort this out."_

I grimaced at my phone. I was far too busy to sort it out. I had been since the day after Brandon's house-warming when Mari had tried to talk to me. She had since given up trying. I squashed any guilt at our uncomfortable relationship under a whole pile of 'I need to get this done or neither Charlotte and Tom's wedding nor the opening of the estate will happen'. Duty, I think they call it. "Yes," I said, reluctantly.

I distinctly heard Charlotte rolling her eyes. "_That's pretty much what she says_," she muttered. "_You two_," she said, wearily, "_are neurotic_."

"You're the only one who can save us, Lestrade. " I paused. "Are you going to drop 'Lestrade' when you get married?"

"_What_?"

I sat down on the old fallen tree. I had stood up far too long already. "You know… you're not going to be Charlotte Marceline Lestrade-Jennings-Middleton-Palmer, are you?"

She paused again. "_I don't know whether to be horrified at the fact that my name is longer than most picture books, or the fact that the work has finally set you round the bend."_

I closed my eyes and soaked up the early summer sun. "I'd say both."

"_I dropped the 'Jennings' when Mum married Cliff."_

"It's still quite a mouthful."

She sighed. "_I'll probably drop the 'Lestrade' and the 'Middleton'. I'm not really a Middleton anyway…"_

"Sure you are!"

"…_and the Lestrade of 'Lestrade' has never been in much evidence. He doesn't deserve to have me needing comedy length cheques just to sign my name."_

I smiled to myself. "I see there are still some issues over that…"

"_Says the girl who hasn't talked to her sister since the beginning of February."_

I grimaced again. "Fine."

"_Dress size?"_

"Oh, I'd don't know, ten?"

She scoffed. _"If you're a ten, I'm going to have to get my dress let out. You're a six or I'm a milkman."_

"What?" I was, at this point, lying full length along the fallen tree. I was, after all, having trouble sleeping again, largely due to recurring nightmares about Ed and Brandon's best friend and something to do with Marc. "Is that even a saying?"

"_I'm not sure. You're an eight, at the most."_

"Really?"

"_Will you just believe me? Now, how do you feel about strapless?"_

I rested my arm over my eyes. "I feel like I have nothing to hold it up with."

She scoffed again. "_Tessa knows bras_."

"I don't even want to know what that means."

Charlotte's smile was evident in her voice. "_No, you don't_." She paused. "_I've got one here which is taffeta_…"

"Good start."

"…_v-necked, with assymetrical rouching…"_

"No idea what that is."

"…_and a tea-length, a-line skirt."_

I paused.

"_Ellis?"_

I sighed. "You pick out whatever you want us to wear. Seeing as I didn't make it up to play bridesmaid dresses, the very least I can do is accept my dress without complaint."

The smile was even more obvious. "_In that case_…" she said, and I groaned.

Given the amount of work I had piling up, not to mention my growing obsession with getting it done, I surprised myself by staying exactly where I was for a good ten minutes. Everything in me had been crying out for a rest for weeks. The sun felt restorative and the tree, while rough, was surprisingly comfortable. I could even turn my head, hand shielding my eyes from the sun, and watch the deer in amongst the trees, walking between patches of dappled sunlight. It was all pretty idyllic. That was, until I heard my named bellowed from beyond the ha-ha. "ELLIS!"

I squinted across the field. Brandon was standing, waving at me. I waved back. He made vague gestures. I could not for the life of me work them out. Finally, my mobile rang.

"_This is stupid,"_ he said, without preamble.

"You're the one phoning me."

He grunted. "_I wanted to talk to you about staffing the opening."_

"All right then."

"_Ellis, I can see you. Can't we do this face-to-face without, you know, technology in the way?"_

"But then I'd have to leave this tree."

There was a pause. "_Who are you and what have you done with Elinor Dashwood?"_

"Brandon…"

"_Sunbathing? Lying, in the sun, while there is work to do?"_

I could see him pacing. "Brandon…"I started to say again.

"_I mean, don't get me wrong, it's quite nice to see you taking a break for once, but did you have to have a nervous breakdown now? The boat-house opens on _Saturday_, Ellis, Saturday."_

"I'm ready," I managed to get in, before he ranted again. "Charlotte has done an amazing job of publicising the opening, Mari's ready at the book-shop, the post-cards arrived this morning, the bags arrive tomorrow."

"_But_…"

"Your staff is all ready to go, they arrive tomorrow for your obsessive two-day training schedule. Mari has Marc coming down to help, and a raft of volunteers. We are _ready. _Also," I added, "I was on the phone. I have been here for a grand total of fifteen minutes. I was just about to get up and go back to work. So chill."

He made harrumphing noises. Then he said, "_fine. But you of all people don't get to tell me to chill."_

I stood up, and started walking towards him. "Hey man, I'm cool. I sunbathe and everything."

He snorted. I saw him shake his head. "_This moment, clearly, was an aberration. The chances of this ever happening again are…"_

"Slim to none," I finished for him. "True. Today is good though: I should have been in London, and I completely forgot, so it's an extra day that I didn't think I'd have. It gives me extra time for everything that needs doing. Also, it has the added bonus that I don't have to be in London all day with my sister."

By this time I was much closer. I saw him wince.

"What?" I asked.

He paused. "_I need to talk to you about that_," he said, now close enough that I could hear him without the phone. He clearly realised that as, having finished speaking, he snapped his mobile shut.

I stood opposite him across the ha-ha. "What?"

He rolled his eyes. "Come up here first."

I raised an eyebrow. "So just jump it like some nimble gazelle?"

He rolled his eyes again. "No. I was going to give you a hand up."

Resigned, I walked down the sharp slope into the long grass and nettles. He crouched and, grasping me round the wrists, hauled me up the wall.

"Thanks," I said, reaching the top.

He gave me a wry smile. "It was nothing."

"I mean, it would have been more complimentary without all the grunting."

His smile widened a bit. "Stop complaining."

We fell in step beside each other, and walked up towards the estate office.

"So," I said eventually. "Marianne."

Brandon nodded slowly. "Look," he said. "You've got to get over whatever happened and move on."

"What do you mean 'whatever happened'? You were there."

He frowned. "You're not talking about the house-warming, are you?"

"Yeah."

He frowned again, a little more. "Ellis, that was over and done with months ago."

I stopped. "How do you mean…?"

He turned and rubbed a hand up the back of his head. "She apologised, like, a week after it happened."

"You didn't tell me?"

He shrugged. "It was no big deal."

I started walking again, fast. "You are such a boy," I said, exasperated.

He smiled a little, loping along to catch me up. "Don't be all crabby, Dashwood."

"I've been cross with her for months, thinking that she should apologise and make it up with Cate and…"

"All the while she already had and you looked like a lemon?"

I hit him, possibly a little harder than I intended. He rounded in front of me, blocking my path.

"Look," he said, hands out to stop me from barging straight into him. "She said sorry and that she was just grumpy that day anyway, but it shouldn't have come out like that, and Cate apologised for being massively insensitive…"

"She wasn't!" I interrupted.

He gave me a look. "Anyway," he said, after a pause. "They're over it. They're friends now. Mari comes down every now and then and hangs out with Cate."

"When Marc's away," I added, acidly. Brandon gave me another look. I sighed, and winced. "Sorry," I said. "That was uncalled for."

He smiled a little. "You need to get over it," he said. "The rest of us have. It's just you and Mari now."

I sighed again. "Did she put you up to this?"

"Nope. We don't talk like…" he sighed. "Like we used to."

"Sorry," I said again. "I just feel like such an idiot."

He slung an arm around my shoulders, and started walking up to the office again. "Yeah," he said, "but at least now you have a tan to go with it."

* * *

The Saturday came, glorious and bright, and with as much as a fanfare as we could muster, Cliff declared the boat-house, the book-shop and the little plant sale 'open'. Marc turned up and charmed countless women into buying books that they certainly did not need. Brandon all but disappeared under a pile of crockery and cakes, but emerged as evening approached, exhausted, floury, but happy. Cate preened up at the boat-house between clearing tables and making sandwiches. Even Tom, who had flatly refused to open the gardens until the June estate opening, was pleased with the plant sale, not to mention the comments about the fragments of garden that could be seen while walking between car park and stable-block, stable-block and boat-house. We ended the day spent, with stiff drinks in hand, lying on the grass in front of the house.

Brandon was stretched out next to me, eyes closed, hand firmly around his drink. "Talk to her," he muttered, and, having nudged him just enough to spill some of his drink, I got up and followed Mari over to where Cliff had the barbeque roaring.

"Where's Marc?"

She turned, eyes wide, all surprise. "Uh, he's away doing more research. He just came down today to help."

"It was good of him."

She smiled, a little wary. "Yes."

"Girls," boomed Cliff. "You did an amazing job today. Have a burger." He shovelled a charred hunk of meat onto a roll for Mari and passed it to her. "Ellis," he said. "Vegetarian one for you." He smiled, broadly. "You can recognise them by their fake grill marks." He passed me my roll, and turned to serve Nancy and Maggie who were blithely ignorant of the food poisoning waiting for them. Mari and I exchanged a look, and then both drenched our burgers in ketchup.

"You did an amazing job," I said, repeating Cliff's words. "Thank you."

She smiled a little more. "Quite all right," she said. She paused. "You want to watch Brandon try to eat a burger without wincing?"

I grinned back at her. Somehow, I knew we would be all right.

* * *

That said, it only took a few days before we were bickering again. It all started when, over a rare breakfast when we were all present, achieved, in part, by the fact that Mari got up early and made pancakes. I was still not really sleeping, with the opening so close and looming, so I had already been out for a run. The whispered prospect of pancakes at six o'clock however, drew me back to the flat. I had bought the local paper while pounding the high street, and Mum picked it up, flicking to see if the estate had made the news again.

"Anything?" I asked as I poured the coffee.

She riffled the pages some more. "No," she said slowly. "Apart from those beautiful adverts of Charlotte's."

She paused over an open double-page.

"Mum?"

She looked up and shrugged, with a smile. "There's a job here…"

I passed her a mug. "You don't need to do that."

Mari turned very deliberately from the pancake pan and gave me a very determined look.

"What?"

She shook her head slowly.

"It might be quite interesting," said Mum, sipping her coffee. "They need a secretary here at the doctor's office."

"I'm serious, Mum. You don't have to work. I'm bringing in enough for the moment."

She smiled. "Only because the rent is free and you never go anywhere or really eat."

"Well…"

Mari smiled to herself. I look daggers back at her.

"I appreciate your concern, Ellie-Em, but I can't just rely on your generosity."

I sat down opposite her. "Yes, you can. It hasn't even been a year yet since Dad died. Give yourself some time. You don't need to work. We have plenty…"

"For pity's sake," said Mari, whirling around, a spatula in hand. "Let her work, and stop being so arrogant as to think that you know what's best for us all."

"Mari," chided Mum, gently.

"Come on," she said, "you are bored to tears by all of these functions with Diana. You were never that kind of lady of the manor before. Why on earth would you be now?"

She smiled at Mari. I looked between them, dumbstruck. "What?" I managed eventually. "You don't like the stuff that you've been doing?"

Mum patted my hand. "It has been nice to be busy but no, Mari's right. They don't exactly interest me."

I felt light headed. "But I thought…"

She smiled. "You thought that I needed time to get myself together after everything with your Dad, and that you could relieve my burden."

I nodded slowly.

Mum smiled again. "I'm so grateful that you wanted to help, sweetheart. I really am, and I don't think that your caring has anything to do with arrogance."

Mari rolled her eyes, before turning back to the pancakes.

"You just wanted to help, but I need to get back on my feet. I count myself lucky that nearly a year on and we've come so far, and that you're all here, and _talking_," she added with a deliberate look from me to Mari's hostile back. "I'm grateful for everything you've done, Ellie. Really. No-one could have done more."

I sighed heavily. "So, in short, I was a total idiot, once again."

Mari turned around with a massive plate of pancakes and dumped them on the table. "Pretty much."

"Marianne," Mum said. "Come on, girls."

Mari sat down heavily. She sighed. I passed her a mug of coffee, and she sniffed it, appreciatively. "OK," she said eventually. "You really do need to learn to ask people to help though. You know. Occasionally ask for someone else's opinion. That kind of thing."

I grimaced. "I'm not really good at it." I shocked myself with my honesty.

Mum and Mari, however, both smiled. "Exactly."

I groaned and took a restorative sip of my coffee. "Maybe," I said, slowly.

Maggie, who had been gloriously oblivious, reading _Missee Lee_ and eating a pre-pancake snack of dry Cheerios, looked up. "You know what your problem is?" she asked.

I winced.

"You're still wishing that we were back at Norland. Mari as well."

"Well, of course," I said.

"Don't you?" asked Mari, dividing out the pancakes between plates.

Maggie shrugged. "I loved it with Dad there, but with John and Fifi…it would have been unbearable."

Mum smiled a little. "And you think that this is the source of all our problems?"

Maggie shrugged. "I just think that if we could all decide that we were here, rather than wishing we were somewhere else, then maybe we'd all be a lot happier."

Mari passed out the plates. "When did you get so wise?" she asked.

Maggie waved her book, a finger still between the pages. "Not me," she said. "Arthur Ransome." She opened it up. "It's fits to us, _exactly. _Listen."

"This isn't going to be about keel-hauling, is it?"

Maggie fixed me with a withering glare. "No," she said. "Now be quiet. Uh…here. '_She's got a rum job, but she knows how to do it, and to have a job and know how to do it is one of the best things in this life. And if only she stops hankering after Cambridge...'_" She looked up. "See?"

* * *

Thank you yet again. I'm sorry that I left it so long. You've been very patient.

Arthur Ransome's _Missee Lee_ is not, sadly mine. Read it. It's brilliant. Also, the weeping fest, aka _The Notebook, The Iron Giant, Beaches, Dead Poet's Society, An Affair to Remember, Brief Encounter, Anne of Green Gables, Little Women _and _The Lion King _is all also not mine.


	9. Chapter 9

_**So we've covered a year. In nine chapters. Thanks for sticking with it this far. And what's that? About freaking time? Fair enough. But it's a special treat posting: packed full of DRAMA. Something which my posts are generally, let's be honest, lacking. And when I say packed, I mean a bit. And when I say drama, I mean a little more emotional action than normal. Oh, and it's the end of part one. Because I love a story in parts. **_

**Chapter Nine**

"Let's take a moment to mark this auspicious occasion. Amy bested the train service to get here. Tessa is not on her Blackberry…"

"Yet."

"…Nancy _and_ Maggie are both in dresses, _and_ Ellis has emerged from beneath her desk."

"You make it sound like I was crouched there, cowed and shivering."

"You were," said Mari, grinning over a glass of champagne.

"Exactly," put in Charlotte. She, unfortunately, also had a glass, but, more unfortunately, it was combined with nerves and an empty stomach, hence, the occasion-marking.

Nancy scowled. "I don't see why we had to wear these dresses in the first place," she said. "The least you could do is let me drink some champagne."

"Uh, no."

Nancy's scowl darkened.

"But you look so lovely," put in Amy. "Like a princess."

"Oh, Amy," muttered Tessa. "Rookie error."

"I…what?"

Tessa turned to Nancy. "Nance, Calamity Jane wore a dress. You can suck it up."

Amy recovered quickly. A little too quickly. "You mean Doris Day?"

Charlotte, even in her slightly tipsy state, winced. "Amy…" she started, but Nancy's face was enough.

"She was a depressed alcoholic who died of pneumonia, aged just fifty-one!" thundered Nancy.

"I…uh…"

"Maggie," I said. "Could you and Nancy go and find something quietish to do in her room?"

Maggie pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows. It was a scary prospect. Nevertheless.

"Please? Plan an expedition to Kathmandu."

"We've done that," said Nancy, slowly recovering.

"Kilimanjaro?"

"Done," said Maggie, arms crossed.

"Kangchenjunga?" put in Mari. "What?" she asked as I turned to her. "I thought you were running with a theme."

"Fine," said Nancy, standing up and flouncing out of the room, Maggie following close behind.

The door closed, and Charlotte sighed, heavily, then took another sip of her champagne. "Thank goodness," she said. "I thought that they were about to revolt."

"They were," said Tessa, fishing out her Blackberry.

Charlotte grimaced at her. "Come on. No Blackberries." Then she glared at me.

"I'm getting out my lip-balm. Cool it."

She sat down on the window seat. "Fine," she said, "although you were much nicer last year when you weren't quite this bolshy."

I smiled blithely back at her. "This is what comes from being very nearly ready. And while I have emerged from my office…"

"And you _were_ cowering," put in Mari.

"…I am going back tonight to check a few things over."

"Ellis! It's supposed to be a night off!"

I shrugged. "I can't do nights off. I get itchy."

"I've got some cream for that," muttered Tessa, and she shot me a grin over the email she was typing, one handed. Finally, she finished. "There," she said, at Charlotte's grimace. "I'm done. Happy?"

She sighed. "This is torturous. We should have got married first thing. None of this sitting around nonsense. It's making me nervous."

"As if he wouldn't come!" said Amy, incredulously. "He adores you."

"He does," I put in. "It was blatantly obvious right back in October."

Charlotte smiled, despite herself. "Well," she said slowly. "Maybe."

Tessa stood up, shoving her Blackberry in her handbag. "I say we end the torture," she said, peering out of the window.

"What are you talking about?"

With one experimental hand to her perfectly coiled and pinned hair, Tessa leaned further into the window. "Uh…yeah, he's here."

"WHAT?"

She straightened up. "Let's get this party started."

* * *

"You can't sit still for one day?"

Mari appeared at the bottom of the upper terrace steps and gave me a look of utter disbelief.

"I'm fine!"

She raised an eyebrow. Then she turned to Brandon, sitting next to me, tie already un-tied, hair already messed up. He, traitor that he was, nodded.

"She made a 'To Do' list on her order of service."

"Ellis!"

I shrugged, but sighed, resigned. "They were things that I had just thought of. It's better than running off to actually do them!"

Mari shook her head slowly. "Well," she said. "Knowing you as I do…" She handed me a glass.

"What is it?" I asked. Ice-cubes clinked. A suspicious smell of fruit rose from the liquid. It could almost have been labelled as healthy.

"Apple juice, cranberry juice…"

"Could you possibly add…" I started, interrupting, trying to hand it back to her.

"…and gin."

"Oh." I took a sip. "It's quite nice."

Brandon raised an eyebrow. "It's amazing what a bit of hard liquor can do for fruit juice."

"I may be tired," I said, slowly, "but I'm pretty sure that you're mocking me."

He smiled. "Really?"

I leaned back on the step. "Yes."

"I'm going to go and get myself one of those." He said, standing up. He flashed a smile at Mari. "It looks pretty good."

Mari sat down in his place. Below us, Cliff announced in tones loud enough to carry for miles, that Tom and Charlotte were about to dance their first dance of wedded bliss. Their wedded bliss from where we sat looked more like raw embarrassment at having to waltz in front of one's family. It was all a little too much to watch.

"What's up with you and Brandon?" I asked.

Mari turned to me, and, after a few seconds pause, shrugged. "I don't know. He still likes me?"

I decided to not respond. I could either lie or make things awkward. Neither seemed terribly appealing.

She shrugged again. "It's a weird situation to be in, but he seems more…happy with it? I don't know."

"And what about Marc?"

She bit her lip, watching Tom sweep Charlotte around in a much better depiction of 'dance' than I had thought possible. Finally, she said, "I think that he's about to propose."

"What?"

"Yeah."

"Wow."

She nodded, drawing her knees up to her chin.

"Do you like him enough to…?" I asked, tentatively.

She turned her head, resting on her knees, and her smile was so brilliant to be nearly blinding. "I love him," she said simply.

"You'd say yes?"

She nodded.

"You've only known him for six months."

She gave me a shrewd look. "You saw Ed for less than two months, and yet…"

"Yet what?" I could hear the defensiveness in my voice. It wasn't terribly attractive.

She smiled, patronisingly. "I'm not blind. I think you're mad for not doing anything about it, especially ignoring him last October…"

"It was complicated," I put in.

She raised an eyebrow. "Right," she said. "And complicated makes it worth doing nothing?"

I swallowed. "I've been busy. It was too much right then."

"And what about now?"

"I thought we were talking about you."

She shrugged. "I changed topic."

At that moment, Brandon reappeared. "Tom looks pretty desperate down there," he said, with a glance back to the lower terrace where Tom and Charlotte were still stranded, alone, waltzing. "He made some pretty emphatic 'join-me' gestures."

"What are you going to do?"

He shrugged, and sat down. "I thought I'd probably sit here, drink my drink and watch him squirm."

"Brandon!" exclaimed Mari.

He grinned, for once. Then reluctantly, he turned to me. "Ellis, would you do me the honour of letting me drag you around the dance floor."

I squinted. I experimentally lifted my heeled feet from where they had rested. "No," I said. "I don't think I can walk."

He snorted with laughter. Then he took a deep draught of his drink. "Mari?" he asked. "You're the one who yelled at me."

"I…uh…"

"Unless, of course, Marc wouldn't approve."

He had her down. Instinctively, despite herself, she smiled. I, meanwhile, scraped my jaw off the floor.

"Sure," she said, and stood up. "Why not?"

The blissful silence of relative solitude did not last long. Without warning, Lucy appeared next to me.

"Mind if I sit down?" she asked, sitting regardless of my potential answer, next to me.

"Uh…no, sure," I said, sounding about as unwelcoming as it was possible. My impoliteness was shocking. Even to me. I winced, and smiled. "Sorry," I said, after a brief but stern chat with myself. "It's been a long day."

She nodded slowly. "Weddings are very emotional."

"Yeah," I said, nodding. "They are."

"I mean, I cried all the way through the ceremony."

I stopped myself from laughing at her just in time. "Really?"

She shrugged. "You know…" She lowered her voice. "It's hard seeing other people going through what you'd so like to be doing…have done…" She brushed a finger along her eye.

I took a deep breath. "Of course," I said, all the time silently repeating my mantra of 'she doesn't know about my feelings or about how annoying she is therefore do not maim her'.

"It would be easier," she said, now almost whispering, "if other people at least knew about it. I mean, I just worry that other girls are interested in him, and don't know that he's unavailable…"

She left it hanging. I nodded slowly until, suddenly, the meaning sunk in. She knew? She had known all along? I had to take another drink to stop myself from curling my fingers into fists.

"I mean," she went on, "I couldn't blame them. How could they know?"

I took another drink. She had a point, but still. All the comments. All of the pointed references. Now I thought of it, it was obvious that she knew at least something of it: she knew I had known Ed back at Norland; given the Middleton's predilection for match-making and gossip, the possibility of my secret love beginning with an 'E' having not been shared with Lucy was slim.

"Well," I said carefully, my throat tight. "He certainly never mentioned it to any of us."

She smiled a little. "That's what I thought." She paused for a long moment. "But what about you?" she asked. "Why have there been no wedding bells?"

"Uh…" I started, trying desperately to tamp down the rising anger. She knew. She had just all but told me that she knew, but now was inviting me to lay bare the rest of my romantic past. Such that it was. "You know," I said. "A busy work schedule and not many guys around…"

She smiled, soothingly. "I'm sure someone will come along." I refrained from slapping her. Just.

I nodded, mute, and turned to watch Brandon dancing with Mari.

"What about Brandon?" she asked. "He's pretty fine in a rugged, older kind of way."

"Yeah," I said, "but he's like my brother. I couldn't even consider it. It'd be too weird."

Lucy laughed. "I know what you mean. But what about Mari? I heard that he liked her."

Watching them dance, you could have been forgiven for believing it, no matter how much Brandon had tried to move on. He was smiling, more than he ever really did, and Mari, too, looked happy, twirling under his arm, and submitting to dips.

I shrugged. I wasn't about to ship him, nor make things more complicated should it get back to Marc. Again.

"And Marc?" she asked.

I considered asking if she had a previous career with the SAS but decided against it. "He's head-over-heels for Mari. Anyone can see it."

"And she hasn't exactly hidden her feelings back towards him."

I shrugged again. "I suppose not. That's not how she is though."

Lucy smiled, sadly. "If only we could all wear our hearts on our sleeves."

"Yes," I said, briskly. "If only." Then I stood up. "Excuse me, Lucy. I think I need another drink."

* * *

"Ellis, darling, dance with me!"

Marc, in fine form, bounded up to me. I smiled, despite a) my desperate need for gin, and b) my still slight reserve about him. I think it was all tied up in resentment, on Brandon's behalf. Anyway. "I really could do with a drink."

He gave me a look. The kind of look which, if I wasn't convinced that he was in love with my sister, and she with him, probably would have made me agree to anything. "Come on," he cajoled. "Mari's off being romanced by Brandon which, I'll admit, is a joke…"

"Hey!"

"…so I'm incredibly lonely and depressed and need cheering up." He grinned. "Come on," he said again. "I'm irresistible!"

"Really? I seem to be resisting you just fine."

He rolled his eyes. "Fine," he said, passed me, slunk behind the bar, and poured a shot of vodka. "This do?"

"Marc, I…"

"Come on," he said once more. "Unless I get this down you and drag you out on the floor, I'll probably have to dance with Lucy." He dropped the smile, his face aghast. "Don't make me do it Ellis. She's incredibly boring."

"You think so too?"

He grinned, devilishly handsome. "Yes. Now, I need to make Mari jealous, just in case she's fulfilling her Kenneth Branagh older man thing with Brandon, and what better way than sweeping her older sister off her feet?"

I shook my head. Then, knowing it was a bad idea, I downed the shot. "You're incorrigible," I said, coughing a little.

He took my hand in his. "Ellis Dashwood, that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

"Shut up," I said, and followed him out onto the dance floor.

* * *

Sunday, after the wedding, was incredibly quiet. Everything extra that I had thought of during the day, I had sorted out before I went to bed. I woke to sunshine streaming in through the windows, and the smell of warm croissants in the air. It was, in short, idyllic. After the last wine glasses and napkins had been rescued from behind bushes and on top of masonry, Cliff declared that everything was absolutely perfect. Somehow, I agreed. It all felt very strange. I went to bed that night feeling calm. Weirdly, freakishly calm.

Monday, the official opening day of the gala week at Barton Park, dawned grey and misty. I watched the sun struggle up over the sea as I pausing midway through a run. By the time that I arrived at the boat-house, Brandon already had a few members of staff there.

"Coffee?" I asked hopefully at the door.

Clearly, the fun of the Saturday had worn off. He snarled at me. "We're baking."

I continued jogging on the spot. It kept me warm in the early, slightly chilly air, and, more importantly, it stopped me from noticing how jittery I had become since falling asleep the night before. "Please?"

He growled again. Finally, he barked, "Max? Make her a double shot Americano."

Max, cute in a he's-far-too-young-for-me kind of way, nodded, and started working the coffee machine expertly.

"Anything else, oh great leader?" asked Brandon, gruffly.

I gave him a blithe smile. "Nope. Unless you have any Danish pastries kicking around."

He gave me a long look. Then, muttering all the while, he faffed around with whatever was on the counter in front of him, wrapping it up in a napkin, and passing it to Max. "Give this to her too," he said. "Try not to kick her on her way out."

Max grinned, and seconds later handed me a take-away cup, emblazoned with the estate logo, and the warm, napkin-clad package.

"Fresh?" I asked, investigating. "You made fresh Danish pastries?"

"Why else would I have Max and Lorna here so early?"

I shrugged. "I thought you were like me and just were a vicious and pitiless taskmaster."

"Go away," he said and I, warm pastry and coffee in hand, made my way back to the flat.

* * *

Still dressed in my running clothes, I finished up the last few things that needed doing in the estate office and, just as I heard everyone else start to arrive, Lou burst in through the door.

"Oh, brilliant," she said. "I hoped you'd be here. Cliff wanted to remind you to have to wear your estate t-shirt today and actually be around to talk to people rather than, as he said, wallowing in your office and annoying people."

I groaned. "He's a delight, you know?"

She smiled right back. "He's right though. All of the staff need to be out and about and being personable and friendly."

"Seriously, Lou, at this point I'm not sure that I could be all that friendly to a baby."

She smiled again. "You'll be fine."

I grimaced. "Fine. Where is the t-shirt?"

"Here." She waved the plastic wrapped package. "Also, Cliff says that you're to wear a skirt."

"WHAT?"

She shrugged and dumped the t-shirt on the desk in front of me. "He said that you've got lovely legs and you should get them out more."

"Oh good grief…"

"And then Ruth added that it might score you a man."

I thumped my head on the desk. Thankfully, the t-shirt cushioned it.

"Sorry," said Lou. "It might be a good idea though. It's set to be boiling today."

I leaned back in my chair. "You know who signs your cheques, don't you, you sycophant?"

She grinned as she turned to leave. "You don't upset the boss. Even if it means upsetting the next one down."

* * *

By the time that I came out of the shower, Mum, Mari and Maggie were all up and around, offering me toast and telling me that I should eat or I'll not make it through the day. None of them, however, paused long enough to let me tell them that I had already extorted pastries out of Brandon, and it was faster just to agree so, required skirt on and coffee in hand, I sat down for five minutes.

"Your Dad would be really proud," said Mum, sitting down opposite me. "You know? He would, Ellie."

I paused, trying to drink coffee, send urgent texts and find an old email all at once. "Really?"

She reached out and patted my hand. "So proud. Exactly a year on, and look where we are."

Maggie sat down too, breaking the moment. "You've done good, El," she said, sloshing milk onto the Cheerios. "Everyone says so."

"Thanks," I said.

Mari paused, busy fishing in the toaster. "What?" she asked with a grin. "You want more adulation?"

I pulled a face at her. She threw a piece of charred toast at me. "You've done a really good job," she said, putting in a fresh piece of bread for herself. "I mean, it was at the expense of your emotional wellbeing and general ability to express anything other than mania, but it's good."

I stuck my tongue out at her, and put down my phone. They could wait for five minutes while I hung out with my girls.

* * *

At eleven o'clock, the gates opened. This first day, the anniversary of the accident, was a free viewing day, by invitation, for the local business men and women, and pillars of the community. They were the people who it was all for. They were the people who, if they did not approve, would ruin everything. As the old clock tower finished chiming, I lost my nerve.

"I just need to go and…" I started, standing with the rest of the welcoming committee in the front oval.

"No you don't," said Marc. He looped an arm, firmly, through mine. "Enjoy the moment."

"It's torturous. I think I might throw up."

He grinned. "Nonsense. Get your game face on."

"Marc…"

"No, he's right," said Cliff from behind me. "This is a moment to be savoured."

"It's your moment, Ellis," put in Diana, resplendent in her lady of the manor best. "You've earned it."

I groaned. Then I sighed. "Game face?"

Marc grinned again. "You've got it Dashwood. Don't crack now and show emotion. Stiff upper lip. Clenched buttocks."

I hit him. It felt cathartic.

"Ellis!" scolded Diana. "What will our guests think?"

I looked up from where we had been engaged in a minor scuffle to see a small crowd appearing. A small crowd which appeared to be growing. I took a deep breath, and smiled.

* * *

Having seen the large part of the crowd into the boat-house two full hours later, I took a second to breathe, and rather than follow them, I made my way around the deck. The doors were flung wide but, for ease of service and the appearance of a consistently fuller café, the outside chairs had been temporarily removed. Instead, I perched on the railing and watching from a distance as Brandon did his thing. He was at his most effusive on the subject of food. He talked pasta and cake, the importance of real butter and happy eggs, the perfect BLT and the even more perfect, if that was really possible, soup. Somehow, the awkward man who reserved smiles for special occasions and rarely showed any flashy flair was suddenly, inexplicably, the showman. He conjured up sighs and memories from his rapt audiences, rubbing rosemary leaves between his fingers to illustrate a point, crushing a clove of garlic and smelling it luxuriously before sharing a rare, blinding smile with his new adoring fans. Finally, with a few last poetic words, he served them lunch: braised peas and lettuce with gnocchi and parsley pesto was followed by estate reared venison burgers, in bread rolls still warm from the oven with a little carrot, cucumber and mint salad, and finally, if they hadn't burst, elderflower panna cotta with a gooseberry compote. It smelt incredible. Half way through, he escaped the adoring crowds and perched next to me, handing me a cereal bowl of the gnocchi and pesto, dusted with parmesan.

"Thought you might need some sustenance," he said, smiling tiredly.

I nodded, and shovelled in forkfuls of peppery pasta for a few minutes before, after my initial hunger was sated, I paused. "Thank you," I said. "It all looks amazing. From the adoring sounds, I think that you've gained quite the following."

He shrugged. "I had cooked for most of them before."

"Not here," I said, through another mouthful. "Not in connection with the estate. Not in this kitchen."

He smiled a little again. "Maybe."

"You've done good," I said, repeating Maggie's words to me. "Thank you." I took another mouthful. "Cliff's talking about having some massive take-away fest tonight. You want to join us?"

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "What if you came up here instead? There's tons of food left over. I'll grill up the rest of the burgers out on the deck."

"Are you sure? You look exhausted."

"Oh, I'm fine. I'll get second wind in a minute."

I gave him a sharp look. "That, and you can't stand the idea of our eating from _Dante__'__s_."

He quirked a smile. "I have no idea what you're talking about." He stood back up. "See you later?"

"Fine. Thanks for the lunch. And the breakfast."

"Anytime," he said as he walked back in, and I turned my attention back to lunch.

* * *

It was well after the official closing time when the gates actually closed. It had taken long enough to round people up, even longer for them to stop talking, shaking hands, clapping backs. It hadn't just gone well. It had been a blinder of a day. Cate was showered with praise until she blushed and escaped. Tom, still absent, was likewise commended. The work that I still had to do was somewhat hampered by the number of people who came and talked to me, told me how proud Dad would have been and what a memorial this was to him. I had never heard the words 'I'll be back' used so many times in such a short period, but almost everyone promised the same: that they would return, bringing friends and neighbours and family. They would tell everyone they knew, and would pass on the good work for the town that the folk up at Barton Park were doing. It was the last thing that made Cliff hug me, nearly breaking my ribs. "They saw it," he said, over and again. "They know I was doing it for them. I was so worried…" He waltzed off, twirling Diana around, singing as he went. The pride was evident. That and the exhaustion. I dropped off the last of my things at the office, made a list of things to remember, then walked across the stable yard to the book-shop. Laughter floated out of the open doors.

"You guys ready for dinner?" I asked, leaning in.

Mari was lying on the floor, her laptop at arm's length, her arms over her face. Marc was half way up the ladder, putting more books in. "Oh," groaned Mari. "I don't think I can walk."

"It went well?" I sat down in one of the armchairs. "You appear to have…" I glanced around. "A lot of books. Did you sell many?"

She moved an arm and cracked open an eye. "We sold a ton. Old flirty-face over there shifted I don't know how many."

I frowned. "Then how do you have so many…?"

"They brought more," said Marc. "For every book they bought, they brought three more to give to us. We've had to start storing duplicates in the back-room."

"Seriously?"

Mari groaned once more. "I've never been so tired."

"There are venison burgers being barbequed up at the boat-house as we speak."

Mari looked up. "What happened to pizza?"

"Brandon."

Marc rolled his eyes, and put the last books up on the shelf. Mari smiled. "Typical."

"Yeah."

Slowly, she sat up. "Fine."

"Oh so one dance at a wedding and you come running?"

She grinned up at Marc. "Yes. He's my new boyfriend."

He smirked. "Funny." He helped her up. "Come on," he said. "We can sort this later. I'm starving. Of course, I would have been happy with just a curry…"

"Quit your whining Willoughby," I said, standing up. "I happen to know that there's chocolate brownie ice-cream in the boat-house freezer."

We made our way out into the early evening sunshine. Marc made a face at me. "You Dashwoods are ruled by your stomachs. You notice that? It's all about the coffee and the cake and the burgers and the ice-cream."

"Well of course," I said, moving out of the way so that Mari could lock up. "If food be the music of love, eat on."

Marc grinned. "Hear that Ellis? Whit-bush, whit-bush. Know what that is? Shakespeare, _spinning __in __his __grave_."

* * *

By the time that we reached the boat-house, Marc and I had pretty much scuffled it all out. We climbed the steps up to the open double doors, still bickering. Marc, in a rare gesture of gentlemanliness, moved to open the inner glass door and nearly got it smacked in his face as Brandon barrelled through it, the other way.

"Oh, sorry," he said, skidding to a halt. "You all right?"

Marc nodded, tersely. "Fine."

"Sorry," said Brandon again, and turned to go.

"Are you all right?" I asked and he spun around.

"Ellis! Sorry," he said again. "I…I've got to go."

"What?"

"It's an emergency. I'm sorry. Dad's here, manning the grill. He'll stay for tomorrow if I'm still not back…"

"Not back?" I repeated. "Brandon…"

"I know," he said, hands in his hair. "It's the worst possible time, but there's nothing I can do about it. Dad's here, he'll drag in anyone else he needs, he knows the menu, he knows how to run a kitchen." He paused, and breathed. "I'm sorry Ellis, really."

"It's fine," I said, pulling myself together. "Of course, go."

He smiled, briefly. "I'll make it up to you." Then he leaned in, kissed my cheek, and ran off down the stairs.

"You'd better," I called after him, and saw him wave as he ran out of sight. I turned back to see Mari looking after him as well.

"Wow," she said. "It's got to be something important to make him leave like that."

"Old workaholic Morland," muttered Marc and he ushered us into the restaurant.

"Don't be like that," I said, protectively.

Marc smirked. "Like you actually think there's an emergency? He's just unable to have any fun. Too old probably."

Mari smiled. "He seemed to be having fun at Charlotte and Tom's wedding."

Marc waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "Oh yes? And I wonder why that was. Something to do with having his hands all over you." He grinned. "Not that I blame him…"

"All right," I said. "That's enough of you two. Now run along."

They grinned and, fingers entwined, they wandered off to the far end of the tables which had been pushed together into a long line. I watched after them for a moment, a twang of jealousy as he whispered something to her and she laughed. Then remembering that a) I was staring and b) Lucy might be about to pounce, I made my way over to the bar.

"Ellis, petal, you want a drink?" asked Michael Morland, as garrulous as his sons were not.

"Do I ever? What have you got?"

He grinned, flipping a tea towel over his shoulder. "Fruit juice, a good red, a potent cocktail of various spirits and pineapple juice that Catie put together…"

"That sounds promising."

He grinned again. "Good girl. How has your day been?"

I accepted an obscenely large glass, complete with tinkling ice and chunks of pineapple. "Long," I said, "but good. Very good."

"That's pretty much what Brand said. I'm glad."

"And relieved."

His face crinkled into another smile. "So," he said, pouring himself a glass of wine, "to your father." He raised his glass. "That he raised such a wonderful daughter who has been so great to all of my children."

"Michael…" I started, but he shook his head.

"Your father," he said determinedly, glass raised and held out to me.

I sighed, then tinged my glass against his. "To Dad," I said. "That we came here and met you all."

He grinned. "Well then. Good. Now I hear that you're one of those faddy vegetarians who just hasn't had meat cooked right…"

I sighed, but smiled.

* * *

Later, after getting back to the stable-yard, after going our separate ways to sort out things for the next day, and after getting ourselves organised I emerged into the light gloom to see Marc and Mari disappearing off, hand in hand, in the direction of the car park. I watched them go, apprehensive and, despite my best efforts, a little jealous. I liked him, and she loved him, and there wasn't a lot more to say on the matter. I sighed, wrapped my scarf around my neck a few times, and then locked up and headed for the flat. It was weirdly quiet, Mum and Maggie already in bed and Mari away. I lay awake for a while, thinking it all over until eventually, my exhaustion overtook me. I sighed, burrowed deeper into my bedding, and fell blissfully asleep.

* * *

It was at breakfast, the next morning, when Mum finally dropped her bombshell.

"You know how Cliff wanted today to be the family day?" she began, cautiously.

"Sorry?" I asked, from behind a massive stack of toast that she had pushed towards me.

"Family day," she said. "Everyone inviting their family and friends to come and see the work we've done here."

"Right," I said, slowly, "except we don't have any family around here, and all our friends work here and…" I trailed off at her extremely guilty expression. "What did you do?"

She winced. "I may, possibly, have invited John."

I dropped my toast. "Sorry?" I asked, more measured than I felt. "John? John and Fifi?"

"And maybe her family as well…"

"MUM!"

"I know," she said, cringing. "I'm sorry. I just…we're all the family that he has now, and I know that Fi was wretched to you last year…"

"Yeah!"

"…but I'm the nearest thing that John has to a mother."

I rested my head against my palms, elbows on what table was not covered in food, and groaned.

"I'm sorry," she began, "but I since I sent it and then couldn't exactly uninvited them, it seemed silly to tell you until now. I think," she said with a little less distress and a little more determination, "that it'll be good for us. Seeing them. Them seeing us here. Like the end of a chapter."

I squinted at her, unsure whether anyone would blame me for killing her. "Good for us?" I repeated. "I'd think that what would be best for us would be to not have to endure FI AND JOHN!"

Maggie trailed in, her face sleep smudged. "What?" she asked. "Fi and John? Where?"

Mum, to her credit, groaned. "Here," she said from behind her hands. "I invited them."

Maggie stared at her, uncomprehending for a second then, taking a deep breath, shrugged. "Oh well," she said and went to get the Cheerios.

Mum turned back to me, wide eyed. "Well," she started, bemused, "anyway. It's not even definite that they will come. I just thought you should know."

"Yeah," I breathed out. "In that case…" I rubbed my hands over my face, feeling suddenly weary, and suddenly in the need for coffee. I poured another mammoth mug for myself. "I'll need this," I said, and sat back down.

Mum smiled sheepishly. "Sure," she said. "Just not too much. Caffeine is a drug after all…" She trailed off. "On the other hand," she said, eyeing my murderous expression, "drink as much as you want, sweetheart."

I nodded. "Good."

* * *

Cliff had insisted that we greet arrivals from the front lawn again.

"Just this week," he had said, "but it's so important. We are the friendly, welcoming face of Barton Park."

"Some of us more welcoming than others," I put in, eyeing Marc's haggard expression. Thankfully for my own imagination, Mari had woken me up, crawling into her bed in the early hours of the morning. Whatever they had been doing, and I didn't want to think about it, it had ended by two in the morning. The late turn-in followed by the early rise however had clearly not affected Marc well, especially since Michael had had a small accident with the coffee machine and hadn't been able to provide him with his morning espresso. Marc barely registered my comment. He just scowled.

Mari smirked, propping him up. "He'll cheer up soon," she said, soothingly.

It was quite comforting to know that he wasn't on his A game, twenty-four-seven.

Mari frowned. "Actually," she continued, "you can't have been all that late to bed. You dropped me off here at midnight."

"Midnight? You didn't get to bed until two!"

She rolled her eyes at me. "All right. Who invited the bed-time police?"

"That sounds like a good picture-book," murmured Cate.

"I got a bit caught up on facebook," said Mari, defensively.

"And I got caught by my aunt," croaked Marc. "She talked to me for… a while."

"Ooh…someone's in trouble!" I tried not to crow. After such bad news from Mum over breakfast, any small victories were amplified. Unfortunately, I think I failed. He scowled some more.

"Yes," he said curtly. "Pretty much."

Mari frowned. "What's going on?"

He winced, briefly. "Nothing, really. She's old and crabby. She just doesn't approve of me."

"Well none of us do," I put in, enjoying it all a little too much.

"When's Brandon back?" he asked, swiftly changing tack. "You could go and annoy him."

I shrugged. "Don't know. Michael's still here this morning."

"Yeah, breaking the coffee machine," said Marc, darkly.

"For pity's sake," exclaimed Lou and, excellent PA that she was, she disappeared into the house. A few awkward moments of wandering whether Lou in a fit of rage had gone to smash all of the priceless antiques later, she reappeared with one of the old kitchen mugs full of coffee. "Get that down you, you moaning woman."

Mari and I both laughed. Marc was far too busy downing the scalding drink to care. Diana murmured something indignant about using 'woman' as an insult. Cliff clapped Lou on the back.

"You," he boomed, "are indispensible. Never leave."

She grinned. "Why, thank you. And my staying or leaving will all depend on whether my pay hikes at any time."

Cliff laughed loudly.

Marc frowned suddenly, reaching the bottom of the mug. "Wait," he said, suddenly indignant, "did you just call me a woman?"

"Oh come on Marc," I said. "Savour the moment."

He scowled at me.

"Game face, Marc. Game face."

He elbowed me in the ribs. I, in turn, stole the rest of his coffee.

"Children," said Diana, wearily. "Must we do this every morning?"

I looked up. The gates had opened. People had appeared. I squinted. There was no John. No Fifi. Neither her parents, nor Robbie, nor Izzy. I sighed a great gushing sigh of relief. Cate sidled up beside me.

"You look relieved," she said in a low tone. "Who's here?"

I smiled at her feeling suddenly as light as air. "It's rather, who isn't here…" I began, turning back to do my bit as Estate Manager. It was only then that I saw him. As was becoming customary, my stomach heaved.

"Ellis?" said Cate, concerned. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

Mari turned from her ministrations to Marc to follow my gaze. "Oh," she said. "Ed. How nice to see you."

* * *

"Don't you dare leave me," I whispered furiously to Cate.

"Mari! How are you?" Ed was saying, a little removed from me and yet his gaze flicked across.

"Ed?" asked Marc, suddenly looking more awake. "You're Ed?" He held out a hand. "I've heard all about you."

I winced.

"From Maggie," he added, just too late. "She's nuts about you." He gave me a throw-away smirk, then, having smarmed it up something rotten, suddenly dropped the act. "Harry!" He turned to the man next to Ed, taller, ganglier, and effortlessly less uncomfortable. "What the hell are you doing here?"

He grinned and held out a hand. "I kind of assumed that when you said 'hey come and see this amazing house on Tuesday', that you actually meant it."

Marc had the grace to look a little embarrassed. "You know that I was slightly drunk?"

"And I know that 'slightly' is somewhat short of the mark, but Dad had heard about it, and Ed was thinking about coming, so, you know…"

Marc's face of shame turned to teasing. "You saw the Lord's work in it and thought you should check it out in case of massive flooding and a need to pair up all the animals again?"

"Yeah, that's exactly what happened," he said, and, in hugging Marc, whacked him over the back of the head. "Introduce me to your friends," he demanded. "You've been rude enough already."

Marc smiled again. "Fine. You should be warned though," he added for everyone else's benefit, hands held out in warning, "that Harry is a vicar…"

"…of sorts…" put in Ed, smirking behind the awkwardness.

"…and is apt to try and bring God into the conversation at the most inopportune times."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "You mean that time when you said 'Harry, what's the meaning of life'?"

"Yeah, and…plenty of others." Marc shrugged. "Fine," he said, "Harry, Mari." He snorted.

"Come on…"

Marc beamed down at Mari. "I'm a poet," he said, in high spirits. "Anyway. This is Ellis. She's generally angry with me. I'd avoid her."

"Hey!"

"Fair enough," said Harry, shaking my hand and grinning.

"Cate. She doesn't know me well enough to hate me yet."

Harry leaned over and shook her hand. "Good luck with that."

"Uh…and a bunch of other people…"

"Helpful."

Marc held out his hands, as if helpless to the fates. "They're not very interesting. One of them owns the place. One makes very good coffee."

"I'm sure Lou would be thrilled to know that that was how you summed up her work here."

Marc grimaced at me. Then he turned to Ed. Regret filled my every part. My heart sunk with a thud.

"Ed!" he started, genially. "I assumed you know everyone."

"I didn't, but I do now." He smiled, slowly.

"Right. Sorry about that." Marc didn't look in the least apologetic. Somehow no one seemed to mind. I, however, would have quite liked to kick him in the groin at that precise moment. He was saved from an inopportune injury by Cliff announcing a tour of the house. This first week general practice had gone out of the window. It was all five star treatment and tea with Sir Radcliffe. It meant more work. I would hopefully mean a better impression. It also, however, meant that I couldn't escape.

Marc, with a few last quips, disappeared off with Mari to open up the book-shop. Lou, files tucked under her arm, headed off in the direction of the office. Cliff and Diana were shepherding people up the stairs to the entrance hall. Harry glanced at Ed, then at me, then turned to Cate. "Are you coming round the house?"

She too flicked a gaze at us. "Uh…sure."

They fell in step, talking about something and somehow, hideously, Ed and I were left. Alone. On the front lawn.

"Ellis…"

I pressed my lips together in an all-out attempt to not say something stupid. I winced.

"I'm sorry about last time I was here. Back in October. It was weird and awkward, and I didn't mean to be so…difficult."

"Difficult?" It fell out before I could stop it. "You weren't."

He rubbed a hand over the back of his head. "Yeah…I was. It was weird, wasn't it? It wasn't just me?"

"No, it was," I said, ruefully. "It was really weird."

"It was never like that at Norland."

I shrugged. "Things have changed since then."

He looked ineffably sad. "Yeah."

"How long are you here?" I asked after a long, very quiet pause, anything to break the silence.

"Just the day. Harry's scouting for his Dad or something. We had a day off. It seemed like a good idea at the time," he said, trailing off.

Automatically, I put a hand on his arm. "It was a good idea. I'm glad you came."

He smiled.

I swallowed. And blinked.

He glanced up at the house, then back at me. "Can I see round it?" he asked, eventually.

I felt myself smile and I didn't even know how it happened. Something had shifted again, like one of those puzzles of cogs. Suddenly everything was racing. "Sure," I said. "We'll catch them up."

He grinned. Actually grinned, conspiratorially. "OK. Or you could just show me around."

Everything raced faster. What was he saying? Was he suggesting some kind of tryst behind a Ming vase? Was I out of my mind? "Uh…sure," I said again, quickly losing the rest of my vocabulary. Slowly, I started up the steps. "This way."

He smiled again, lighting up his whole face, and I wondered how I had ever found Marc attractive. He was all cheek bones and expensive haircut next to Ed with his kind eyes and smile. Slowly, _Once__ I __Had__ A__ Secret __Love _rose in a crescendo in my ears. I tried to ignore it. He walked close behind me. A hand brushed mine a few times. I paused in the entrance hall, and knowing that everyone would have gone left, slowly, deliberately turned right.

"Oh, Ellis, there you are. I wanted to ask about tomorrow…"

I stopped dead. Ed all but crashed into me. He steadied himself, a hand on my shoulder. Except then, a second later, he whipped it away as if he had been burned.

I turned, feeling sick. Reality had, painfully, come crashing in. All thoughts of secret moments and hidden smiles disappeared. "Ed," I said. "I think you already know Lucy."

He glanced between us like a startled animal, eyes wide. "Uh…" he began, awkward beyond awkward.

Lucy smiled, coyly. I considered smacking the whole look of coquettish delight off her face, once and for all. I balled my fist, tamping it down for the moment. "Yes," she said.

"Well," I said, my voice strained, "I'll leave you in Lucy's capable hands."

"Ellis, I…"

I didn't stop walking. I heard him, but I didn't stop. I made it all the way past the office before the gasping, wrenching sobs made their way close to the surface. I leaned against the sun-warmed wall and closed my eyes, dredging my being for any last scraps of self-respect and decency. "Stupid, stupid, you knew he couldn't," I murmured, chanting against the coils of embarrassment and disappointment, currently unfurling up my throat. "You knew, you knew and you would have done it, you…"

"Ellis?"

My eyes flew open. Anything to not be caught like this. In this state. Except with my eyes open, I looked straight up into Brandon's face. His look of pure concern was my undoing. To my utmost shame, tears rolled down my cheeks, and before I could lie and explain them away, he pulled me to him, wrapped me in his arms, and murmured comforting nonsense while I wept.

I heard scrunching footsteps in the gravel while we were stood there, my face buried in his shirt, but I didn't look up. I didn't know who it was. I only hoped that it wasn't him.

* * *

_End of Part I_

* * *

**Thank you, once more, to all who read and all who review. You are invaluable. If you haven't favourite this or alerted it (and this was not my subtle way of telling you to) then fair warning: the next part is going to be on the Northanger Abbey wall. Yes. We're leaving Sense and Sensibility for a little bit. So long weeping. Hello high-gothic-high-jinks. I love Northanger Abbey. Please follow me there.**

**As ever, the basic story and bones of the characters are not mine. That's all on Jane Austen. I'd like to think that Brandon's raging hotness is something to do with me though. That'd be nice. **


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